Patch 14 Beta Notes

[DarrenTotalWar]

It's nice to see such support, I really thought they'd moved on. However, it is 9 months overdue

[ToonTotalWar]

Well, Just tried a custom Siege with Playing as Romans against Averni sieging the Capital (Rome) 2 stacks of ladders placed on wall with no problems and the ram did its job at the gate!

Then the fun begins the unit that used the ram just decides to wait outside the gates and not even bother attacking! so why the hell bother bringing the gates down if no unit is going to attack the city from ground level? So I then attack and finish that unit off outside the gates, In the meantime two other units including the general unit decide to run off into the distance!! WTF! why did they do this? Why did they not support the attack unit with the ram?? Seems that the AI is still retarded and the pathfinding is not working correctly.

Finally I then chased the 2 remaining units down and gained a minor victory. A retarded battle and a total waste of time! Who in the hell would run off into the distance and just wait in the distance and not support the offensive troops? Pull ya finger out CA and noted that Mr Lusted is on this thread a lot obviously taken notes on bugs still in game. (well at least I hope so)

[Epic28]

Two things from a testing standpoint I'd love to see, remove torches and remove control/capture points (leave only the city center flag). Both of these two are not necessary and only contribute to more variables for the AI to consider.

Makes me extremely curious how the AI will then react during a siege.

[SenseiJT92]

still no word on Sparta's inability to trade without destroying Athens...

[LestaT]

still no word on Sparta's inability to trade without destroying Athens...

That is design and not bug I think so they probably wont change that. I find it interesting to play as Spartans, ignoring trade and act like mercenary faction taking money to join other factions wars.

Each factions be be played differently and I like doing this approach I take when playing Sparta.

[IlluminatiRex]

I dub this patch the "Elephant Siege Patch"

[Ganossa]

Guys, can we please keep this thread on topic which is patch #14 and its improvements!
It is really hard to find valuable information between so many other topics (e.g. CA business practices or wishes for future patches) discussed here which already have other threads!

Thanks

[ToonTotalWar]

Guys, can we please keep this thread on topic which is patch #14 and its improvements!
It is really hard to find valuable information between so many other topics (e.g. CA business practices or wishes for future patches) discussed here which already have other threads!

Thanks

Lucifer you are right but also wrong, it is very difficult not to vent your anger on a game that has just moved from an Alpha to a Beta status! we are all testing and reporting back with our finds but having spent around £80.00 on this game it s me off that my hard earned money was spent on a half cock unfinished game!

So back on topic...

Sieges - much better, the rams and ladders do what there supposed to do.

AI & Pathfinding to units - still retarded and needs fixing with immediate effect..units running into the distance and units not entering a city after they use a ram is totally not acceptable

[Chereye]

Lucifer you are right but also wrong, it is very difficult not to vent your anger on a game that has just moved from an Alpha to a Beta status! we are all testing and reporting back with our finds but having spent around £80.00 on this game it s me off that my hard earned money was spent on a half cock unfinished game!

You spending more than the 60 means you bought DLC even after experiencing what an' unfinished product Rome 2 is thus have no right to complain.

[Kirra]

Just food for thought patch 14 seems to have improved gameplay somewhat. Let's hope patch 15 doesn't screw it up.

[ToonTotalWar]

You spending more than the 60 means you bought DLC even after experiencing what an' unfinished product Rome 2 is thus have no right to complain.

Correct! That's because I mod these games to hell. I have learned my lesson and will not be foolish enough to by another TW game until it is out if it's beta stages!

[Praetorian_BGX]

Guys, can we please keep this thread on topic which is patch #14 and its improvements!
It is really hard to find valuable information between so many other topics (e.g. CA business practices or wishes for future patches) discussed here which already have other threads!

Thanks

Actually, 14 patches speaks enough about CA business practices. Hard to separate those subjects.

[DramaBelli]

Al Qamar's HOPE is stronger than any technical report or changelog list

[hereami321]

Enemies are still utterly incompetent at defeating my forces in defensive mode... I can put a full stack of 16 pike phalanxes and 4 cav and trick the idiot AI into mobbing one, very rarely two fort entrances, which I then easily attack from behind with my shock cav and troops that are left over from the other fort entrance.
This is VH, I expect the AI to at LEAST to attack two of the fort entrances consistently, or to burn down the fort with their infini-torches. Oh well, gonna wait for EBII.

[Cavalier]

Enemies are still utterly incompetent at defeating my forces in defensive mode... I can put a full stack of 16 pike phalanxes and 4 cav and trick the idiot AI into mobbing one, very rarely two fort entrances, which I then easily attack from behind with my shock cav and troops that are left over from the other fort entrance.
This is VH, I expect the AI to at LEAST to attack two of the fort entrances consistently, or to burn down the fort with their infini-torches. Oh well, gonna wait for EBII.

Hmm, sad to hear about the forts, but in Minor Settlement battles the AI attacks from basically every opening. If there are four streets, they are going to attack from all four directions which is a very nice feature.

[Sp4]

From a few battles I have played, I now get more stuttering than before (no actual FPS drop, just stuttering animations)

[Cavalier]

From a few battles I have played, I now get more stuttering than before (no actual FPS drop, just stuttering animations)

I've gotten it from sieges. I think it's because of the AI trying to mash all their units up four small points/ladders combined with the largest unit settings.

[Teos16]

Nice patch, but AI when defending in major cities don't use the pike formation. Sadly

[Hetairos]

Tested the patch more thoroughly now. I don't know if I should laugh or cry about the patch. Apparently the AI knows now how to breach, use siege equipment simultaneously and so on. Even though its a step forward it makes me cry seeing the incredible pathfinding issues and non-obvious AI problems. The walls... these walls...

What was happening:

I chose the simplest and flattest city map I could find with no river and as little obstacles as possible.

Nonsense:
The AI deployed his entire force and all siege equipment onto one spot of the huge walled city. 2 onagers, 3 ladders, 3 towers and 2 rams and 20 units. all at the same spot. I put my phalanx behind the wall my slingers on the walls and my sword units behind them, forgot my general in the city center.

Awesome:
The AI used all of his munition to create 3 breaches.

Matter of Preference:
During the bombardment, felt like 10 minutes nothing happened. No movement, no approaching no missile fire nothing. Simply me watching the arty to breach 3 times. Nothing that makes me cry though. Its completely fine to bombard first, its just unfortunate that the fast forward in Rome II does exactly nothing :S

More Awesome and Epic View: All 3 ladders and 3 towers arrived and docked at the same time, they were able to get round all obstacles with no problems.

Old Problems:
Now a series of follow up problems of the nonsense deployment and a series of old problems arises...

- the artillery has created three breaches in front of me. the AI sends his towers to dock on the breached walls (no single unit was on those walls anymore. Hurray successfully docked. The Ai is on the breached walls. My forces are covering the breaches below... What now??? Starring at each other.
- the 3 ladders dock. 1 unit manages to get on the walls gets insta-wrapped and killed. the other two units climb up the ladder and climb down the ladder over and over again. meanwhile annihilated by my slingers.
- the 1 ram is still on its way to the next gate which is 100 of meters away. my towers manage to kill the last men of before they ever reach a gate (because it was deployed in the middle of nowhere and to reach a gate took the longest possible way and did not even stay out of range while moving so got killed quickly)...
- the 2 ram did never move
- once i killed all siege equipment holders the AI send his entire force... of course only a few guys remaining, mainly missile, cav and some leftovers of infantry. the missile troops start to engage my people on the wall. I try to get them off the wall... all units freeze. i can't command them anymore they do nothing. they got killed. The walls pathfinding is horrible...
- all remaining forces attack the breach. my people on the ground easily fend off the cav and missile infantry since they are pike men.
- 1 single unit managed to get into the city through a tower. problem here... it thought that its primary mission was to win over the tower and than sit there guarding its flag... nor did the unit attack my phalanx in the back nor go for the centre flag while i was engaged.

Summary:

AI knows what he is doing and docking equipment works smoothly.

... Pathfinding... a huge problem for AI AND player units.

... Deployment... and reinforcement mechanics are more important and essential than people think

... Those Walls and Cities... I don't know but even the graphics are awesome I think the cities are a chaos of small fragmented ever changing areas and the walls... why the walls with this two sided deployment. Its completely killing any proper pathfinding here. Naval landings do not help in the equation. I think the implementation of modern day land and naval battles were a bad design choice. Even if it may have hyped Rome II and sold many copies

[IlluminatiRex]

But the fast forward in Rome II does work. iirc if you're running the game with settings above the recommended for your computer, it does not do anything because it would cause more lag or something.