Patch 14 Beta Notes

[alQamar]

Has anyone tried out the siege AI yet?

I will try it out now kubee.

[Cavalier]

Has anyone tried out the siege AI yet?

I tried it out on a custom battle.

Me defending Alexandria as the Romans on the Medium sized map against Parthia. I had 1 gen, and 6 legionaires. The Parthians had 1 gen and 12 parthian Swordsmen. I gave the AI 3 large siege towers and 2 ladders. (scorpions on large siege towers are OP, btw)

I defeated the first wave who quickly broke and ran(I forgot about vanilla morale, lol). To my immense surprise, the second wave of ALL the remaining Parthians charged up the towers and ladders. Brought a smile to my face.

Seems like it's working.

[Hetairos]

Good news than

[Humble Warrior]

I have not played RTW2 since around patch 8 after i raged against being led to wait for nothing.

However, the significant notes on the Siege AI have raised my jaded eyebrows a little. However, in no way am I going to give CA any kind of kudos at all until I run and test this Siege AI for myself once it has been released.


I wait to see what will happen very guardedly.

p.s. However I am very concerned that the removal of torches has not been mentioned. It is important to remove this if the fixed AI is as fixed as they say.

[Hoplite of Ilis]

A lot of AI fixes - so they say. Time for tests!

[Cavalier]

A lot of AI fixes - so they say. Time for tests!

Nvm.

[FieryMastermind]

Now give us this...

http://imgur.com/a/5D8Yg

[Cavalier]

Now give us this...

http://imgur.com/a/5D8Yg

That'd be awesome. Rome II would truly be fantastic if that was implemented.

[cherryfunk]

Now give us this...

http://imgur.com/a/5D8Yg

What is this from? Looks fantastic!

[IlluminatiRex]

What is this from? Looks fantastic!

It's a very nice looking Mockup made using Photoshop.

That would be nice for the UI though.

[Huberto]

I guess the thought is if they ignore naval battles, they'll just quietly disappear.

[The Useless Member]

Is this THE patch then?

I guess the thought is if they ignore naval battles, they'll just quietly disappear.

Such a shame too. They could be the highlight of this game and be really amusing.

[Altimis]

Really look damn sweet

Time to take a shield up yet again!

[alQamar]

omg guys, I just did a standard test for the siege AI and it worked. Not only the fact I deserved a valliant defeat on very hard difficulty (silly capture point) but the AI behaves now very much like we wished like release, I guess.


details:

- AI uses battering ram, ladders and towers all the same time.
- the AI will also reuse them when the first wave is on the walls, this is something we missed in patch 13.
- the main army will attack aswell even if the first assault was defeated, did not work well in patch 13 and led the AI to sent out single units to torch the gate. Now the whole army is engaging
- The cav will use the gate if already opened. I had simply no torching!
- a small taskforce split up from the whole army and advanced to the victory point while the other ones tried to bind my forces.


small issues:
- some cav units did wait before the wall (acting as reinforcements?)
- AI had problems flanking my units on the ground (working of units with each other could be a little bit better).

todo:
- another try would be fair enough, without giving a battering ram to the siege AI. Let's see how it can handle this situation now
- testing if the siege AI is still passive when under missle attack while defending a unwalled settlement

This was a challenging siege now. God praise CA and patch 14! Great job CA. *clapping hands*

[GoTW Kubee]

Yeah, the siege AI actually works now lol.

Shame it took them almost a year to implement it, but hey.

[DramaBelli]

I was thinking this was the humor thread but NO °_°

Curiosity devours my wandering soul @_@

[DeliCiousTZM]

Glad to hear so many people happy with the new siege AI. If i would have guessed a few months ago i would have said they were going to leave it as is.

Soon as my partners are online there is going to be a lot of play and a new lets play produced . Egypt vs Rome.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

I just hope people cares to give feedback, CA cares to fix the patch after the feedback.

Still don't think its the unicorn people are looking......

[ToonTotalWar]

Sounds good! Seems that the siege AI is finally fixed well done CA. Now the game is potentially worth playing again now. At this stage of patch 14 is when Rome 2 should have finally been released as a product to purchase.

Anyways enough moaning time to test.

[alQamar]

Hi again, I did another game without giving the AI a battering ram


pro:
- very smart actions from the AI (very hard difficulty), brought the towers to the walls also the ladders
- again resused siege equipment with later waves of soldiers attacking
- very fair balance of units comming over the walls and through the captures gates
- the AI also captured the gatehouse instead of torching it, when they had no battering ram this time
- patch log says that cav in a battle cannot deattach so easy anymore, but I think they balanced this very well. I did 3 or 4 cav charges with cathaphracts. It took longer order them out of the battle but it feels certainly balanced and not like Medieval 2

cons:
somehow in this game I managed the AI suffered a pathfinding exception. This caused the AI to form a heavy blob behind a siege tower (refer screenshots), not moving for a while. When the blob dissolved the framefrates went down to nothing. It was really a heavy lag. I think we had quite similar problems with pathfinding and causing the game literally to halt for a time.
The AI blob dissolved by its own. As this is still a beta I hope CA should have a look on the screenshot and eliminate this bug, without it, I still have to say it looks quite flawless.

edit:
In both games: The AI did not use its archers properly, instead using them as a weapon to besiege me or at least firing on my units from the walls they captured - the AI sends them into melee. "All in" seems to be a higher order.


some impressions:

The start everything seems normal




suddenly one of the towers act like a heavy magnet, several units stormed to the siege tower and formed a big blob





when the blob dissolved heavy FPS drop / game lags happened. The team pushing the tower then went on towards the walls





in this picture you can see that fresh arriving units are reusing siege equipment brought to the walls by another unit





A little bit unorganized the AI is storming down the main road and tries to reach the capture point. What a mess my firepots did not ignite





Is this the victory march already?





again units will stay outside the city, like in the first game. As you can see no torches were involved but they capture he gatehouse.





the last fight...





results in a close defeat. I think from the AI's point of view the victory was quite clear - I will never understand the rating.

Sounds good! Seems that the siege AI is finally fixed well done CA. Now the game is potentially worth playing again now. At this stage of patch 14 is when Rome 2 should have finally been released as a product to purchase.

Anyways enough moaning time to test.

Yep I think if they released Rome 2 as intended late 2013, without the pressure of patching while the game is out - we would have had a great game at release with a lot less issues.
Sure it is hard it took nearly one year longer, but at least it seems very good now with the siege AI. It is somehow amazing. This patch finally gives me back a lot of hope. There are still some core issues to improve / fix.