Patchausblick

[Elvis]

Erstmal eine inzwischen schon etwas ältere Stellungnahme zur Patchpolitik fuer Empire:



Dear All,

I'd like to take this opportunity to outline our update plans more clearly.

The next hotfix will be released very soon, this fixes those critical issues described in Sensei's recent post. We're working very hard to get that tested and released as soon as possible.

We're currently following a model of releasing a hot-fix, followed by a large gameplay update afterwards.

This will then be followed by further hot-fixes and again, a later large gameplay upgrade.

The gameplay updates address everything to do with gameplay, naval landings, AI behaviour, unit balancing, the lot. The hot-fixes correct game code issues that cause crashes and instability on some systems.

The larger gameplay upgrades are being developed in parallel and will be released in a timely fashion following the fixes.

So in summary:

i. The next patch is coming shortly, this will fix a number of critical code issues.

ii. Following the next patch a massive gameplay update is being prepared which will address: balancing, naval units, AI behaviour and other issues.

iii. This cycle of 'fix-upgrade' will then continue.


We are genuine about intending to support the community in the long run and we are all still working on Empire, games sold are not games forgotten.

I'm aware everyone will inevitably ask 'when' and all I can say is very shortly for the next hot-fix and within a few weeks for the major gameplay upgrade.

Kind regards,
Kieran

Ab jetzt soll es ein tägliches, kurzes Update zum Fortschritt der Patches geben. Hier das erste:


April 8th.


Just thought I would make a post about where things are, where things are going and what we plan on doing.

First off, we are going to support Empire for a long time. The first game play patch with both a lot of fixes and balancing/economic changes as well as more is in testing, and then the cycle of hot fixes then game play patches will begin again. At the moment every programmer is focused on fixing bugs.

What balance/economic/other changes in first game play patch?

Quite a lot really. Unit balancing has seem some general tweaks across the board to improve it. Unit costs have changed for both multiplayer and single player.

For multiplayer there are now separate costs for early and late era so that units better reflect the techs available, and units such as mortars and rocket ships have had big cost increases and light infantry have had their cost increased a bit as well.

For single player, unit costs have increased on normal, even more on hard and even more on very hard so that on very hard units cost 4x their upkeep cost. Bigger ships have had their cost increased and all ships upkeep costs have increased.

There have also been general economic tweaks to prevent the huge sums of money that were possible in the late game, and so to increase the challenge of the game.

As for the other changes, we've added in a delete save game button, a button to allow you to view battle replays from the single player Play Battle menu, improved ship grouping UI and other things.

There are also of course AI improvements and yes naval invasions though they may be rare for now.

What you going to do after that?

Well we are going to carry on fixing and improving the game. The AI (both battle and campaign) will see continuous improvements, multiplayer will see improvements, there will be more balancing improvements, and some nice free stuff you'll be hearing about in due time.

From a personal perspective as someone working on unit balancing, the next game play patch after this one will see some big improvements in terms of diversification of different unit and artillery types. The game play patch after that one will see improvements to naval battle balancing.

So what am you getting at?

We are going to carry on supporting Empire for a long time. We are going to carry on improving Empire. You'll see more as things get done.


Jack.

[Golwar]

Klingt vernünftigt und nach dem was man erwarten darf.
Ich bin allerdings gespannt was sie da nun täglich berichten wollen.
Zwar ein interessanter Ansatz die Kunden zu besänftigen, aber dann ist es ja auch nicht mehr fern bis zum getwitterten Fluch warum die KI noch immer nicht anlanden mag. :D

[Elvis]

Schaetze sie muessen der KI erstmal beibringen an Kuesten zu landen. Bisher hat sie wohl nur die grundlegende Faehigkeit in Haefen anlanden zu koennen. Da in diesen aber entweder Einheiten und/oder Schiffe stehen, duerfte das eher selten funktionieren.

Naja, aber wenigstens macht CA den Eindruck als wären sie noch einige Zeit wegen Empire in Bewegung.

[N.e.m.o]

Das mit den seeseitigen Invasionen war auch in M2TW ein Problem, das sie erst mit einem Patch gelöst haben

[mariusgaius71]

So nachdem Bayern gerade zur Halbzeit 4:0 in Barcelona zurückliegt:doh:,
wende ich mich dieser Hinrichtung ab und diesem Forum zu.

Ich kann mich an keinen Teil der Total War Serie erinnern, wo die
Anlandung von Truppen gleich reibungslos funktionierte.
Da die KI aber schon beim Start von Empire besser ist als bei den anderen Teilen, bin
ich mir sicher das CA das hin bekommt.
Diese Art der Informationspolitik finde ich gar nicht schlecht. Zumindest weiß man das
an den Patches gearbeitet wird.
Ich hoffe ja immer noch auf einen Patch der die Performance bei schwächeren Systemen
verbessert, meinte irgendwo mal was darüber gelesen zu haben.

[Jerobeam II.]

Daß die KI besser sei als die anfängliche von MTW2, kann ich nicht unterschreiben.

[mariusgaius71]

Und was an der KI war denn in MTW 2 besser deiner Meinung nach ?

[Jerobeam II.]

Einige Punkte:
(a) sie tat etwas mit den Armeen;
(b) sie war in den Schlachten m.E. flexibler, trotz aller anfänglichen Probleme - die Schlachten waren herausfordernder;
(b) sie konnte mit Flotte zumindest insoweit umgehen, daß sie Versuche machte, die Seeherrschaft zu erringen; das ist mir in ETW noch nicht passiert.

[mariusgaius71]

Naja, über Geschmack lässt sich bekanntlich streiten und warum
sollte das über die Leistung der KI anders sein.
Ich fand es immer sehr störend das bei MTW 2 die Diplo-KI nie funktionierte.
Kaum hatte ich Frieden geschlossen hat die KI ihn in der gleichen
Runde immer wieder gebrochen.
Den General meistens vor seiner Armee ins Schlachtengetümmel gestürzt
und mit weit unterlegenen Kräften meine Übermacht angegriffen.
All das machte bisher Empire besser .

[Elvis]

April 9th
Hi there everyone, today we thought we would post a follow up to yesterday's daily update as there was a lot of response to it.

How come you are focusing on balancing and not fixing bugs?

We are not. The designers are working on balancing improvements, and the programmers on code fixes. Work on one does not preclude work on the other. It is not a case of we can work on balancing or fixes, it's a case of we can do both, so we are.

You're quadrupling upkeep costs!?!

No, the recruitment cost of units on very hard will be 4x their upkeep cost. Upkeep costs are actually reducing slightly. This confusion was caused by poor wording in yesterdays update.

Why didn't you mention fixes for such and such?

As a designer I do not work with code so I am not aware of all the fixes that have been done. This does not mean there haven't been any. We are fixing the sound issues people have been reporting, crashes and lots of other bugs.

Some examples of fixes in the upcoming patch are:

- Fixed audio volume dropping following advisor
- General sound balance changes
- Campaign map optimisations, and general crash fixes
- General stability improvements and crash fixes- General optimisation tweaks- An array of fixes and tweaks to improve AI aggression levels
- Fix Video Stutter

There are a lot more fixes than those coming in the patch.


And what did you mean by rare naval invasions for now?

We've fixed the bugs that were preventing the AI from doing naval invasions, but that did not mean they would suddenly start doing them all the time. The priority for them needs to be balanced against all the other items that have priorities for the AI and this will take a while to get right. We are going to continuously improve the AI so the amount of naval invasions will keep on getting better from the initial fix that is coming in the next patch.

What about multiplayer?

More maps are coming. When is still being discussed but you will see more maps at some point(mostly 4v4s, 3v3s and 2v2s).

The problem with cheaters being able to edit unit stats and costs without problem for multiplayer has been fixed and will be in the next patch.

Other multiplayer improvements are still being discussed.

We will also continue to work to fix bugs with multiplayer.

As this weekend is Easter Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, there will not be anymore Daily Updates until Tuesday. Hope you all have a good weekend.

Jack.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/53425/t/The-Daily-Update.html

[Elvis]

April 14th

Todays update will be some progress news on the next patch.

The Beta Test Group

As many of you will be aware a short while ago we asked for members of the community to apply to a beta group we were setting up in order to help test and provide feedback for future updates. We now have a good sized beta test group testing the latest version of the next patch. This is the third version of the patch they have tested, and soon they will testing the next version of it. They have been providing very good and detailed info for us, and patch progress is good.

The next patch is almost where we want it to be for release. After the next patch is released we will continue a cycle of bigger gameplay patches that will of course include more than just gameplay changes.

A short update today, but I know a lot of you are wondering about the next patch and I hope this gives you an idea where we currently are with it, and how the patching cycle will continue.
http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/53425/t/The-Daily-Update.html

[Elvis]

April 15th

Another short update today, it will cover an interesting issue that was reported during recent beta testing of the next patch.

The mod, it does not work!?!?!?1

A change that was made in the patch (addition of a seperate late multiplayer cost for units) broke mods that edited unit costs as the mods did not contain this new value. They would crash on loading the game. Now not wanting to leave people who play some of the more popular mods with a game that doesn't load for reasons they would not understand, we are adding support to the game so that mods without the new field in them will still work once the patch is released.

Though modders, I would advise you to take advantage of the new field once the next patch is out.

So...beta update?

The fourth version of the next patch will be done soon and will enter testing.

There will be a changelist posted closer to the release of the patch.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/53425/t/The-Daily-Update.html

[Elvis]

April 16th

We've had an interesting week so far. I've just come away from a meeting on the multiplayer campaign beta and things are progressing well.

Naturally the patches remain our focus, but the multiplayer beta is also being worked on. Please don't be confused with the gameplay upgrade currently in beta testing, these are two different things and the multiplayer beta is set for a later release.

For those that are interested Sensei and I spent Easter weekend in France presenting to the excellent LAN event in Poitiers. There were about 1000+ French fans there, playing loads of different games, we made an appearence at the opening ceremony and gave an update on what we were doing with increased threading and i7 support for Empire in the near future.

It's too early to put dates or numbers on things at the moment but some of the early work is yielding impressive performance gains...

Thanks again to everyone for tuning in and reading these, hopefully they give some insight into our day to day work. Right now, patches and the gameplay upgrade are our biggest focus.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/53425/t/The-Daily-Update.html

[Elvis]

April 17th

Today we addressed several savegame issues, and also tweaked some of the unit balancing.
We've also corrected the bug whereby reinforcements entered the battlefield from the wrong direction.

There's ongoing work on the major gameplay upgrade which incorporates all of these updates and many, many more.

Apologies for the short update today, just wanted to give you a quick overview of major issues, back to the grindstone!

Kind regards,
Kieran

P.S: Just as a reminder, although there will be work going on over the weekend, there likely won't be another update until Monday.

................

[Elvis]

Habs mir geschenkt weiter die Dailys zu kopieren. Ist ja auch alles unter dem obigen Link zu finden.

Morgen abend erscheint jedenfalls der erste große Gameplaypatch und ca. 70 Bugfixes sollen ebenfalls enthalten sein.

[Golwar]

Habe es aufmerksam gelesen, aber letztlich reicht es dass man weiss das etwas kommt ;)

[Headhunter]

Da bin ich ja mal sehr gespannt, ob das was bringt......erobere grade als Franzose die Welt ohne größere aktive Gegenwehr....auch beim Bewaffnete-Bürger-Abschießen geht auf Dauer die Motivation flöten :rolleyes:

[mariusgaius71]

Hoffentlich schrauben sie auch an dem Soundproblem.
Damit scheinen ja viele ihre Schwierigkeiten zu haben .
Hab aber bisher nicht vernommen ,dass dies im kommenden Patch angegangen wurde.

[Theoderich]

Der Patch kommt wohl erst Morgen. :heul:
Quelle: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=469

[Golwar]

Danke für den präzise zum Ziel führenden Link. :D
Ist okay, der eine Tag. Hatte eh nicht vor demnächst wieder Empire zu spielen. ;)

[Ladegos]

Mehrkernunterstützung mit Patch 1.3. (http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,679587/Patch-fuer-Empire-Total-War-Version-130-unterstuetzt-Mehrkern-CPUs/Strategiespiel/News/)

[mariusgaius71]

Na endlich optimieren sie das Teil. Darauf warte ich schon Ewigkeiten:geistlicher:

[Headhunter]

Mehrkernunterstützung mit Patch 1.3. (http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,679587/Patch-fuer-Empire-Total-War-Version-130-unterstuetzt-Mehrkern-CPUs/Strategiespiel/News/)

Hmm.....wieviele Patches gab es schon?? Demnach wäre diese Aussage ja der Beweis, das die Releaseversion Version 0.8 war, oder??:D

[Elvis]

Wir werden uns ab jetzt am besten an die geäußerten Versionsnummern von CA halten um Missverständnissen vorzubeugen.
Demnach war der letzte Patch 1.2 und als nächstes kommt 1.3.
Es ist auch verwirrend, wenn wir weiterhin winzige Hotfixes, wovon es auch nach 1.2 einen gab, mitzählen, von denen aber bei weitem nicht jeder überhaupt etwas mitbekommt.
Entsprechende Threadtitel habe ich bereits umbenannt.

Heute gab es mal wieder ein interessanteres, längeres Daily Update.


May 8th

For the first part of this update I would like to clarify an issue that seems to be causing confusing and talk a bit about the AI.

Technical v game play patches

Some people seem to have got the impression that we are going to do a cycle of game play patch then technical patch then game play patch etc. So as 1.2 was a game play patch 1.3 won't have any game play improvements in it. This is not true. All patches will include bug fixes and game play/balance improvements. Hot fixes of course are done for specific issues we feel need to be addressed more quickly. So there is no wait for a long time between balance improvements or for bug fixes, patches will include both.

Patch 3/1.3/Patch 4

There has also been confusion about the naming/numbering of patches, which really stems from the disconnect between our internal branch names and the version number you see in game.

1.2, the large that came out on the 29th of April was referred to as Patch 3 on the forums for a while before being called 1.2. Now the next patch has been referred to as Patch 4 in some places leading some people to think we are talking about 1.4. Patch 3 and Patch 4 are simply the internal project branch names for what was patch 1.2 and what will be patch 1.3. Of course this has caused confusion and is merely a result of devs referring to internal branch names instead of using the version numbers that will be used for the patches on public release.

AI

One of the hot topics on the forums lately have been discussions about several battle and campaign AI issues, and people have been asking whether we are going to address them or make any further improvements to the AI. I would like to repeat something I said in the first Daily Update I posted (exactly one month ago in fact). There will be continual work and improvements done to the AI with each patch.

The big topic of discussion in relation to battle AI is a new problem people have spotted where the AI units constantly try to move out of the way of each other resulting in them just walking into the player's line and engaging in melee instead of sensibly standing at range and shooting. This has occurred as a result of a change we made to try and prevent the AI from blobbing its units together presenting a nice easy target for the player. Obviously it has not worked as well as we would like, but rest assured improvements are being made so this problem will not exist in 1.3.

We do not want to put out a hot fix for this as we want to do thorough testing of this issue; both internally and with the beta testers so as to make sure there have been improvements. Battle AI will have a bigger testing focus amongst the beta testers for the next patch.

For the campaign AI, the big issues are AI factions making peace with each other and naval invasions still as whilst they do now occur, they are rare as we said they would be pre-patch. There have been improvements to both of these made for the next patch, and as said earlier the campaign AI is constantly being worked on.

Balancing Changes

The second part of this update is about the balance changes for land battles that will be in the next patch.

I know there were some discussions amongst the multiplayer community who wondered why some changes were made when balance was already decent in the release version of Empire and they felt that only slight changes were perhaps needed.

It is precisely because the balance was decent, and not good or great that balancing changes are continuing to be made, as Empire can and will be better balanced.

So, what is changing?

This patch pretty much covers every aspect of land battles to improve game play and balancing. Summed up, the changes are as following:

- Slight slowdown in unit movement speed.

- Increased differences between unit types.

- Balancing improvements made to morale system to improve battles.

- Big changes to projectiles to provide more diversity between shot types and to make more shot types viable.

- Better survivability for guns and carriages in artillery units.

- Better balancing and costs for units.

- Addition of mob formation for native infantry, skirmishers and some irregulars and light infantry.

So as you can see quite a lot is changing.

Unit Diversification

A big part of the balance changes have been more about trying to give clearer differences between unit types through both stats and other changes.

For an example of a change, light infantry, skirmishers, irregulars, light cavalry and missile cavalry can now spot hidden units at longer distances making them more useful for scouting on the battlefield.

I will be posting threads in the multiplayer forums here, at TWC, CSS and at .org for more detailed discussion of these changes as there are a lot and I don't want to bog this post down with statistics.

Shot Types and Artillery

Currently, some shot types are very useful and some are not very useful at all. Artillery is also very vulnerable and it is too easy to knock out guns. Round shot for foot and horse artillery has been improved to make it more useful, range of shrapnel has been decreased, howitzer range has been decreased. Mortars have also had the accuracy of their more exotic shot types reduced.

All the changes are aimed at making all shots have their use and to encourage the use of different shots within a battle. And to make sure artillery is no longer very easy to take out; their survivability has been increased a lot.

Morale

At the moment it is very difficult to break most units unless they have taken a very large amount of casualties, resulting in some melees lasting too long and decisive rear/flanks charges not having the impact they should. No I'm not saying long melees shouldn't happen, and that combat should be over really quickly, just at the moment it is a bit too long. So some morale factors have been tweaked to improve the flow and feel of combat.

This is just a brief summary of the changes that have been made, as said earlier I will be posting threads in the multiplayer forums here, at TWC, CSS and at .org for more detailed discussion of these changes as there are a lot and I don't want to bog this post down with statistics.

[Jerobeam II.]

Kann mir jemand erklären, warum meine Steuereinnahmen immer gleich Null sind? Hat man VH/VH einfach keine Steuern mehr? Ist das ein auch anderen begegnendes Phänomen?

[Eldanesh]

Habt ihr irgendwelche Modifikationen installiert?
Es ist nämlich leider so, das die Patches inkompatibel zu diversen Mods (z.B. Darth Mod) sind.

[Jerobeam II.]

Gute Idee, danke. Vielleicht, ich habe ETW schon so lange nicht mehr gespielt, daß ich das vergessen habe.

EDIT: Tatsächlich habe ich den DarthMod einmal installiert. Wie bekomme ich den wieder runter?

[Tricky Tiger]

Gute Idee, danke. Vielleicht, ich habe ETW schon so lange nicht mehr gespielt, daß ich das vergessen habe.

EDIT: Tatsächlich habe ich den DarthMod einmal installiert. Wie bekomme ich den wieder runter?

Über Steam.
Spiel markieren dann auf Eigenschaften.
Dann, Lokale Dateien.
Dann, Integrität des Spiel-Cache überprüfen ...

Doch vorher:
Die main.pack würde ich löschen und neu downloaden lassen (geht automatisch nach dem löschen)

Alle Darth-Mod Packs löschen, sonst werden die automatisch wieder geladen.

[Jerobeam II.]

Dankeschön! Mal sehen, ob dann wenigstens in der Übersicht ein lausiger Taler angezeigt wird.

[Elvis]

Alle Darth-Mod Packs löschen, sonst werden die automatisch wieder geladen.

Das hätte gerreicht.
Die Darthmod pack löschen und die Skriptdatei.
Nur wer noch Darthmod 1.0 benutzt und mit dem Mod die Main Pack ersetzt hat muss diese neu ziehen.

[Hohenlohe]

Dankeschön! Mal sehen, ob dann wenigstens in der Übersicht ein lausiger Taler angezeigt wird.

Ich glaube nicht! Ihr müsst euer Spiel von Neuem beginnen, dann werdet ihr vernünftige Resultate haben.Habs gestern mal mit einem neuen Marathenspiel probiert und damit gute Einnahmen gehabt. Aber mein typischer Elefanten-Rush geht nicht mehr so einfach, da es jetzt gut 2000 gold kostet nen General zu rekrutieren am Anfang statt wie früher 1300 gold.

herzliche grüsse

Hohenlohe, der sich momentan nicht entscheiden kann, was er spielen soll...*lächel*:rolleyes::smoke:

[Tricky Tiger]

Den Tipp mit der main.pack habe ich gegeben, weil diese in engem Zusammenhang mit der patch.pack steht, aber bei einem Update nicht unbedingt erneuert oder aktuallisiert wird.

Ich hatte meine main.pack vor dem Update 1.2 mit der derzeit aktuellen patch.pack angeglichen. Das Spiel lief danach auch minimal besser.

Nach dem Update stellte ich fest das die main.pack noch die alten Werte enthielt. Dann habe ich die Integrität des Cache durchgeführt. Die main.pack hatte sich immer noch nicht geändert. Darauf hin habe ich sie gelöscht und neu gezogen. Erst dann hatte ich aktuelle Werte.

Da ich meine aktuelle patch.pack wieder etwas geändert habe, habe ich auch gleich wieder die main.pack angeglichen. :D
Der Tipp mit der main.pack gilt nur zur Vorbeugung einer evtl. Fehlerquelle.
Ist also kein "Muss", sondern nur ein "ich würde es". :D ;)
Überwiegend interressant für Leute die ein bisschen rummodden.

...
Weiterer Tipp:
Wenn man Nationen spielt, die auch zur See fahren können, also Handelshäfen besitzt, sollten wieder mehr Augenmerk auf die Handelshäfen legen und dort ihre Häfen vollpacken (max.10 Schiffe).
Nur so komme ich ZB. in meinem aktuellen Frankreichspiel finanziell über die Runden. Ich habe nur 3 volle Brigaden (1 für Amerika, 2 für Europa) mit denen ich pö á pö mein Reich ausbaue.
Ich bin bei ca. 1752 und habe noch nicht einmal die Hälfte von dem geschaft wie vor dem Patch 1.2. :eek:
Es wird eng für einen Geamtsieg.

@Hohenlohe
Spiel mal Frankreich. Da hast du streckenweise was zu knabbern. :D

[Jerobeam II.]

So: nachdem ich die Daten wie oben beschrieben gelöscht hatte und dann die Integrität überprüfen ließ und das Ganze dann wohl wieder komplett war, passierte folgendes: Problem beim Ausführen von Empire Total War.exe. Diese Meldung kam nach dem ersten Ladebildschirm. Also: neu installiert, aber gleiches Problem. Kann es plötzlich Probleme mit der Graphikkarte o.ä. geben? Und wo kann ich die Einstellungen von ETW finden, um der Sache auf den Grund zu gehen?

[Jerobeam II.]

Problem hat sich gelöst.

[hohe_Berge]

Problem hat sich gelöst.

Warum?

Glück Auf

[Jerobeam II.]

Gute Frage. Ich weiß es nicht. Es ging dann einfach wieder. :???: