Autumn Release Summary

[Ragox]

OK, so I've been following every single news and twitter update and I can't keep track anymore of all the awesome things we are going to see soon.
I'm so happy that you were able to muster so many amazingly talented people for this project again and I want to thank you all for your hard work!

I will now try to summarize the awesomeness of the big update:

• Complete rework of all unit cards
• Onager and Lithobolos siege engines
• Around 65 new units for all kinds of regions and factions, including Polybian and Marian rosters
• Visually improved units for several factions, including better looking mounts
• All units now have LODs which improve the performance on the battle map
• Many improvements and fixes for the unit animations
• Visually and technically improved settlements
• Visually improved ground textures, vegetation models and grass
• Uncountable improvements to the campaign in general
• More historical factions names and improved symbols
• New reforms for certain factions
• New intro videos for several factions
• New and improved texts for many things
• New music tracks for steppe factions
• Menu changes and improvements
• Some historical battles to play

Please let me know what I missed, so that I can add it

[z3n]

See the spoiler in this post for the mechanics changelist details but view it as a summary rather than the full list

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...7a-is-released!

[myarta]

Though everything in that spoiler is already released in 2.07a, whereas my understanding of the purpose of Ragox's list is to tally all the things that will come new with 2.1.

[QuintusSertorius]

Though everything in that spoiler is already released in 2.07a, whereas my understanding of the purpose of Ragox's list is to tally all the things that will come new with 2.1.

I think you're probably right about his intent; it's just that in only summarising those things it ignores the huge amount of effort involved in all the updating and playtesting of the mechanics that has gone into all the testing cycles. For someone who's last experience of EBII was 2.01, those are just as significant as the new shiny.

[myarta]

Oh, I didn't think about the fact that there might be people who have waited since 2.01 and not played in the mean time! In that case, the changelog would take a whole tree to print out!!

[QuintusSertorius]

I could probably summarise them in fewer lines than that - but it would be more than the single line in the OP.

[alin]

Some to add to the list:
-around 60 new units and new mounts
-animation fixes and improvements
-LODs for new and old units(for a smoother experience)
-campaign and battlemap sound fixes(eg. voice mods)
-new faction intros
-menu changes and improvements
-new reforms

And QS can continue on the gameplay part.

[alex33]

Some to add to the list:
-around 60 new units and new mounts
-animation fixes and improvements
-LODs for new and old units(for a smoother experience)
-campaign and battlemap sound fixes(voice mods)
-new faction intros
-menu changes and improvements

And QS can continue on the gameplay part.

Does this mean that not all units will cry "Roma Victrix" when taunting or that stuff like the old medieval 2 stuff is gone? Something like imported speech files from eb 1? =)

[alin]

Does this mean that not all units will cry "Roma Victrix" when taunting or that stuff like the old medieval 2 stuff is gone? Something like imported speech files from eb 1? =)

@HaHawk can respond to that, he's the one working on that.

[b0Gia de Bodemloze]

OK, so I've been following every single news and twitter update and I can't keep track anymore of all the awesome things we are going to see soon.
I'm so happy that you were able to muster so many amazingly talented people for this project again and I want to thank you all for your hard work!

I will now try to summarize the awesomeness of the big update:

• Complete rework of all unit cards
• Onager and Lithobolos siege engines
• New units for all kinds of regions including a complete Polybian roster
• Visually improved units for Numidia and many other factions
• Visually and technically improved settlements
• Visually improved ground textures, vegetation models and grass
• Uncountable improvements to the campaign in general
• More historical factions names and improved symbols
• New and improved texts for many things
• New music tracks for steppe factions
• Some historical battles to play (?)

Please let me know what I missed, so that I can add it

At least.

[romanius24]

-LODs for new and old units(for a smoother experience) ?

Does this mean sprites? That should be a huge fps boost right?

[Barnabas]

Will we have any new buildings in autumn release? I feel like EBI had much more building variety, being able to construct many different things like public baths. Does the team feel content about the number of buildings which can be built or with given time would they like to increase the variety?

[alin]

-LODs for new and old units(for a smoother experience) ?
Does this mean sprites? That should be a huge fps boost right?

Sprites are a different thing and LODs(level of detail) is another, it means that based on distance units will use meshes w/ reduced polycount.
So yes, a FPS boost, how much we haven't measured.

Will we have any new buildings in autumn release? I feel like EBI had much more building variety, being able to construct many different things like public baths. Does the team feel content about the number of buildings which can be built or with given time would they like to increase the variety?

Yes, some will have new buildings as they were quite empty before.

[Ragox]

Some to add to the list:
-around 60 new units and new mounts
-animation fixes and improvements
-LODs for new and old units(for a smoother experience)
-campaign and battlemap sound fixes(eg. voice mods)
-new faction intros
-menu changes and improvements
-new reforms

And QS can continue on the gameplay part.

Dang, 60 units is a lot more than I was expecting, that's amazing!
Thanks a lot for the information alin, I've updated my original post

[QWE_asd]

New soundtracks?

[QuintusSertorius]

New soundtracks?

Yes, at the very least there are new steppe soundtracks, I can't remember what the others were. Came to about a dozen all told.

I'll get to my summary later, but z3n can talk to a high-level view of BAI, pathfinding, cohesion, CAI and invasion priorities changes.

[Poppis]

Has there been any progress on province descriptions?

[Ragox]

New soundtracks?

Have a nice eargasm:

[alin]

And as you found out, add the Marian reform to the list with 5 new units, new officers.

[QuintusSertorius]

From my perspective (as I said, I'll let z3n summarise his work), the following is notable:

• A complete revision of the battlespace in terms of unit stats and performance. Every single unit has been reviewed and amended, that review including (but not limited to) standardisation of movement, attack, defensive skill, fatigue and morale, missile range and impact; a consistent approach to special qualities (including wholesale removal of ap from missile units); rebalancing of mass and cohesion; reworking of cavalry, skirmishers and missile units so that each actually functions as intended; fix to phalanxes so that they actually work as the anvil. Consider 2.01 where javelineers didn't throw their missiles, phalanxes were spongy and easily infiltrated, precursor spearmen were a pushover in melee, elephants didn't work, cavalry charges were feeble and horsemen gods in melee, the list goes on.
• Re-costing of every single unit on a consistent formula so that we no longer have oddities like Xystophoroi being both better and cheaper than Hippeis. Now unit size, equipment, training and status determine what they cost, which is consistent across rosters.
• Change of many factional bodyguard units with either new permanent units or placeholders more like the intended ones (Getai, Bosporans, Nabataeans, Epeiros).
• A complete overhaul of almost every single government building and the recruitment it provides; Hellenistic factional buildings no longer provide Hellenistic units (only locals - except the Royal/Dynastic Administration); addition of local auxiliary support to the Roman Provincia building after the Marian reform; every faction has access to at least one building providing local recruitment options. Significant expansion of local differentiation in recruitment, with the addition of a dozen new hidden_resources.
• Allied Governments re-done. Client Rulers added to the Allied Government precursor building.
• Reconcepting and rewriting of the colonies system (both Hellenistic and Native) to be distinctive and provide different units to the factional governments.
• Numerous fixes to all the old scripted events (reforms, colonisation, independence etc), which have been reviewed, tested and updated to function as designed. This includes a now-functioning Koinon Hellenon Reform - something that was broken from the earliest public releases.
• New faction missions (Baktria, Boii, more to come) and tribute/independence scripts for Baktria and Hayastan.
• New reform events for the Hellenistic military and Romani.
• The mercenary system reviewed, restructured and rebuilt. All mercenary unit costs revised in line with the new unit cost formula. Changing roster over time implemented.
• Review and reworking of all starting garrisons and armies.
• Review and correction of many of the traits and ancillaries. As some examples, inheritance is now working better, and you can get a physician ancillary outside of a settlement with a level 3 Fertility temple.

I'll no doubt come back and edit this as I think of more things, but that will do for now.