Medieval II Total War Patch 1.2 Released!

[Darth Wong]

Go to totalwar.com to get it. Note: it's more than 600MB.

[Darth Wong]

From the readme:

Medieval II: Total War README

Last Updated: 2007-04-16
v1.2


Medieval II: TW v1.2 contains the following changes:


AI

Units do not clump together when told to complete a 180 degree turn.
Janissary Musketeers now fire consistently.
Enemy AI army formations in bridge battles now allow their own artillery to fire.
Enemy cannons do not fire at unbreakable walls.
Grouped archers out of ammo will attack enemy units in melee combat when ordered to do so.
AI does not deploy outside of enemy gates.
When defending an enemy settlement with multiple exits, taking your army out of the side/back door does not make it easier to defeat the enemy.
Improved Siege AI.
Cavalry can now charge a spearman army.
General's bodyguard unit now marches correctly outside castles.
AI now effectively assaults 2nd tier of a Fortress.
Sallying AI army now reacts properly to being assaulted from 2 sides
Attacking Siege AI concentrates on taking the settlement rather than chasing down units outside the settlement.
Generals are now more effective at chasing down routing units.
Enemy AI reacts to being bombarded with Trebuchets while inside a settlement.
Siege AI now more difficult to defeat if player places missile units outside the walls.
AI controls it units more effectively in a Citadel
AI artillery more decisive in its positioning
Remaining AI army now advances to use siege equipment
AI Cavalry can now flank a Spear Wall
AI now responds to missiles when sieging settlements
AI now crosses bridges to attack
AI responds more quickly to gates that have been opened by Spies (while sieging).
Units do not break formation when chasing routers
Enemy AI effectively attacks when player's units in a settlement square
Enemy AI now utilises spare rams
Improved enemy AI response to stakes
Shortened Siege attack timers
Enemy AI will no-longer send out General's bodyguard on a suicide mission while defending


Diplomacy

Improved responses to monetary offers
Bribery attempts do not always fail after an unsuccessful first attempt
Diplomatic 'Just Rejected' response no-longer to 'Not Interested' response to counter-offer, no matter how generous
Aztecs now appear in the correct year (for diplomacy actions)
Generals in a Crusade do not get inquisition
Improved diplomacy mechanic - AI Factions now stick with alliances and/or attack 'more intelligently'


Crash

Soft-locks in MP Lobby no-longer occur
Host random hangs fixed
Resolved issue with client CTD when host ends game that client is joining
Auto-resolve Siege battle hangs fixed
Siege tower catching fire no-longer causes random hangs
Random hangs after loading Campaign save game


Pathfinding

Battering Rams no-longer stuck in gates
Ship movement area fixed
Ram crew no-longer stuck between rams
Northern European Castle terrain fixed to allow docking of towers
Improved use of ladders
Southern European Fortress wall fixed to allow docking of towers
Improved the way units use Way-points
Siege of Setenil slow-down tweaked
Units no-longer become stuck on canyon walls on 'Canyon' map
Units do not ascend/descend invisible ladders
Units do not get stuck on Siege towers
Cavalry pathfinding improved when sallying out from a Fortress
Bridge battle pathfinding improved (units do not constantly reform)
Citadel and Fortress paths fixed so that units can avoid assaulting inner walls
Breach pathfinding tweaked


Combat

Enemy spearmen do not charge with raised spears
2H axemen attack tweaked, inc. Attacking Cavalry
Defending units can no-longer enter a siege tower as soon as it docks with the walls


Mechanics

Mouse Cursor position now updates when scrolling with the arrow keys.
Assassination exploit fixed.
Mission "Reinforce Region" now functions correctly
Attacking an enemy army from inside a sieged settlement no-longer causes the enemy to lose all built siege equipment
Fixed two family members (brothers) with the exact same name
Rudder event now triggers at the correct time
When an enemy sallies and is defeated you no-longer have to wait for the timer to run out in-order to win.
Assassin mechanics tweaked
Mercenary recruitment tweaked
Diplomatic Information scroll updates correctly.
Online replays now match
Slowdown fixed on Desert Sanctuary
Metallic Resource now support Mines
Cavalry charges do not fail when charging skirmishing/moving units or if a knight is out of position
Units can now withdraw on the Eifel Mountains Battle Map
Construction queue exploits fixed
The carroccio standard can now fit through the gate on a sally out battle.
Southern European > Fortress: routing Enemy AI now leaving the map
Printing press event triggers at the correct time
Ladder docking/undocking tweaked
Faction standings tweaked
Priests no-longer convert to heretics if traveling on a fleet
Upper limit added on how long units stay in loose formation for.
Traits/VnV triggers tweaked


Camera

Camera height does not drop under bridge in River Po Custom Battle map.
Camera does not drop below water's surface in Palm Beach, Andalusia and Italian Wars map/scenarios.
Camera does not show the underneath of a bridge when General is killed on the bridge


Controls

Drag Deploy functionality tweaked
RTS camera functionality tweaked


Graphics

Princess character now greyed out upon death on Family tree
Venice battlemap ambient building placement tweaked
Fixed issue with trees disappearing when panning camera
Added paths to doorways in Southern European Large City
Added paths to doorways in Southern European City
Fixed minor lighting issue in Southern European City
Fixed misaligned platforms in Southern European Large Town
Tweaked Crusade Army banner
Fixed texture gaps and unwelded verts on Middle Eastern Huge City buildings.
Fixed incorrect Tower Path in Mesoamerican City
Fixed path through wall in Mesoamerican City Wall
Fixed floating buildings above the battle map in Aztec Gold Scenario
Fixed floating spikes in Mountain Redoubt scenario
Added correct image for Paladin ancillary
Fixed grey reinforcement area that states that 'This army cannot fight in night battles' even though the current battle is not a night battle.
Added correct image for Aztec Rebel - Native Archer
Added correct image for Aztec Spearmen
Fixed floating torches in SE Citadel courtyard
Garrison quarters no-longer change to Town Guard when in Construction queue
Armoury building image in construction queue no-longer changes to an armoury
Fixed issue with Trebuchets sometimes disappearing when zooming in close
Fixed maps have the winter option but don’t have winter texture on the battle map
Night attack selection tick and reinforcements do not disappear if user selects night attack option and then views enemy army details.
Fixed officers not animating while riding
Removed trees in the water in The Battle of Otumba.


Deployment

Units can no-longer be deployed on inaccessible sections of wall
Fixed deployment issues with Southern European Wooden Castle on either side of the main gate.
Units no-longer deployable in buildings in Mesoamerican City


Collision

Ballista collision improved
Southern European Citadel gate collision improved
Middle Eastern Gatehouse collision improved
Issues with units getting pushed into areas that can't be deployed into.


______________________________________________________________________
Battle Editor

This tool is unsupported by either Creative Assembly or Sega, it is
provided as is and there are no guarantees that it is free from bugs.

You can run the Battle Editor in two ways:
1. Run Medieval2.exe with the commandline switch:

medieval2.exe --features.editor

2. In the config file add the following option:


[features]

editor = true

______________________________________________________________________

Cinematic Editor

This tool is unsupported by either Creative Assembly or Sega, it is
provided as is and there are no guarantees that it is free from bugs.

NOTE: When viewing movies created in Cinematic editor in pro applications.
e.g. Premiere, the Alpha channel will always be set at 0. As a result you
must ignore the Alpha channel setting in the application. Unedited movies
playback normally in standard Media Player apps such WMP or VLC.

To run the Cinematic Editor you must create a new config file with any
filename (e.g. CineEd.cfg) and launch medieval2.exe with the following
command line switch:

Medieval2.exe @CineEd.cfg

The Config file must contain the following:

[video]

windowed = true

movies = false

tga_width = 800 #tga capture size



[capture_tga]

fps = 20



[misc]

tga_front_buffer_capture = true



[audio]

disabled = true



[cine]

show = true

width = 800

height = 600



[replay]

play = true

file = replays/replay.rpy

camera = cameras/cam1.cam #default camera to load



#The file will also need to contain one or both of these options:


[cine]

capture = true #captures the movie as .tga files using the default camera (required)

avi = true #use this if you want an AVI instead of .tga files

______________________________________________________________________


UI

Mission scroll hotkey added
Financial Details hotkey functionality and tooltip added
Reveal/Advance advice hotkey functionality added
Battle Tutorial Dismiss advice functionality added
Magnifying glass added to Disaster Strikes scroll
Princess appears correctly on family tree
Chat Window errors fixed
Family Tragedy scroll triggered correctly
Console text appearance tweaked
Now possible to launch game from autorun launcher
Fine Grain time control added (accessible by holding Shift and clicking + and - on battle UI)


Save/Load

Loading saved game of the same turn no-longer allows user to keep both allies when they declare war
Russian and Czech autosave fixed


Audio

Movement_Embark speech now triggered correctly
Allies breaking through gates of citadel now triggers correct speech
Battle ending in draw when timer runs out now triggers correct speech
Campaign Map interface sounds added
End Turn sound now fades out nicely
Win/Lose music is now representative of the Faction
Enemy King killed speech now triggered
Enemy Reinforcements arrive speech now triggered correctly
Player Army Tired Battle Event Speech is now triggered.
Player Army Half Gone Battle Event Speech is now triggered.
Enemy Army Half Gone Battle Event Speech is now triggered.
Player Under Attack Idle Battle Event Speech is now triggered.
Player Winning Combat Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
Player Losing Combat Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
Leaves Fleet speech now triggered correctly.
Player Tide Of Battle Up Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
Player Tide Of Battle Down Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
Muslim Enemy General Killed Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
Christian Enemy General Killed Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
Allied General Captured Battle Event Speech now triggered correctly.
The "spy infiltrated our settlement" audio/speech is now played when "Start battle" is pressed during cutscene
Correct region music plays when loading a saved campaign game.
Added sound trigger for planting archer stakes in ground.
Clicked-on characters on the Campaign Map no-longer stack their audio response if clicked multiple times.
In the Historical battles, Battle of Otumba and the Battle of Hastings the music speeds up when you attack
Other minor audio tweaks also carried out.


Text

Minor grammar/spelling errors fixed


Medieval II: TW Update 2 also contains fixes that were included in Update 1:

Battle AI, Siege AI and Campaign AI are no-longer passive
Close-range AI attacks are more consistent
Cavalry Charge and Cavalry power are more consistent
Merchant trade values no-longer drop after load / save
Elephant Artillery does not cause problems in Campaign Battle
Reduced Inquisitor power
Morale effects tweaked
Autoresolve
Increased effectiveness of naval invasions
MP lobby crashes removed
MP in-game soft-locks removed
Added support for international MP
Minor issues with deployment lines / zones have been solved
Tweaks made to Diplomacy mechanic
Sieged Settlements no-longer showing as sieged even if besieging army has been defeated
Gunpowder units do not get stuck re-forming
Siege equipment does not disappear while zooming
Removed Assassin exploit
Tweaks made to unit pathfinding in settlements
*Command line switch added to remove 'reinforcements delayed' message
No-longer possible to open gates with siege towers or embed them in walls
Minor UI changes
Added missing Audio triggers
Controls and Camera tweaks
Added ModTool - Unpacker


*To remove the Reinforcements Delayed message use the following command line switch:

medieval2.exe --game.unlimited_men_on_battlefield true

[Kamakazie Sith]

I remember buying my first game that was 1 gig in size, and now we're looking at 600MB patches. Amazing.

Anyway, what are some opinions on this patch as far as historical accuracy is concerned?

One of the advantages of making a game based off history is you don't have to be seriously concerned about balance...

[Ford Prefect]

Improved Siege AI

Does this mean I won't be able to cackle insanely as I bombard my enemy's cavalry from his own walls?

[Dartzap]

Until they implement the Mounted Longbow men, I refuse to play it again!

Nah, in all honesty I'm still busy with C&C3, When the holidays arrive I shall try and remember it, heh.

[Vympel]

Is it compatible with earlier savegames? I still need to get around to the New World with the Byzantines (I've been delayed by many other games!)

[CaptHawkeye]

"Enemy AI will no-longer send out General's bodyguard on a suicide mission while defending"

Finally. That was arguably the most retarded thing the AI could do. All I had to do was post a unit of Levy Spearmen at the wall breach and just by doing that my chances of winning the battle double.

[Stravo]

Any fix on the cannon tower issue in this patch?

[Ghost Rider]

Any fix on the cannon tower issue in this patch?

LMAO...are they ever going to fix it?

Still, they did some more to saves and what not...though (I have to wonder what is so difficult or inane about the cannon towers that they cannot find and fix about it.

[Darth Wong]

Even though the cannon bug tower isn't mentioned in the changelog, I'm pretty sure it's been fixed, if only because the latest version of the litemod (version 2c, available from here) no longer incorporates the cannon tower fix. I don't see why they would eliminate that fix if it wasn't already fixed in the game.

The latest version of the litemod fan-made bugfix mod has the following changes:

1. Includes several balance corrections:
-Janissary Heavy Infantry given +6 attack, +7 defense skill
-ME Halberd Militia given +4 attack, +2 defense skill
-Western Halberd units/Voulgiers etc. given +2 to primary and secondary attack
-Pikemen given +2 to collision mass
-2handed sword units gvien +2 attack and ap to primary weapon
2. All factions unlocked.
3. Additional merc unit selection for custom battles only.
4. Adds "missing" English Armored Sergeants, HRE Dismounted Gothic Knights, and Venician Dismounted Broken Lances to the campaign game.

A far smaller list of changes than the old litemod, that's for sure. And it's nice to see the old animations back for the two handers. The two-handers can now kill cavalry and they still do that cool "flip the guy over" move that they did before I applied the old bugfix workaround that was necessary before this latest patch came out.

[Vympel]

Cool.

Maybe CA blatantly stole the Litemod's fix and refuse to acknowledge the bug's existence.

I'm waiting for the patch to come out on Telstra Game Arena, I can't afford 600MB to be clocked up on my bandwith metre.

[Darth Wong]

Cool.

Maybe CA blatantly stole the Litemod's fix and refuse to acknowledge the bug's existence.

I'm waiting for the patch to come out on Telstra Game Arena, I can't afford 600MB to be clocked up on my bandwith metre.

How long will that take? Maybe you know somebody else who has a bigger download quota and can just burn it on a CD for you. If you weren't on the other side of the world, I'd burn you a copy myself.

[Vympel]

How long will that take?

Maybe you know somebody else who has a bigger download quota and can just burn it on a CD for you. If you weren't on the other side of the world, I'd burn you a copy myself.[/quote]

Oh not long, probably by tommorow- Game Arena's very good like that, I use it for all my demo/patch downloads (apart from being unmetred, it's also extremely fast for customers).

EDIT: holy crap they've already put it up- and it's been up since 6.00pm Sunday Aussie time!

Badabing!

[Darth Wong]

Update: I just confirmed for myself that the cannon/ballista tower bug is fixed ... by crushing the living fuck out of a French army that tried to attack my citadel at Marseilles.

[GuppyShark]

I am a little disappointed to see no Hotseat mode. That was the first step to PBW MTW2

[Darth Wong]

Just a notice for anyone who cares: the absurdly overpowered New World troops have been dialed back to a more realistic level. You no longer need to bring cannons and musketeers to take those pajama-wearing primitives down. They are now quite vulnerable to cavalry charges too.

I took down four full-stack armies with a single army of English armoured swordsmen, retinue longbowmen, and English knights. No gunpowder required.

It was utterly ridiculous before the new patch: pajama-wearing primitives kicking the shit out of plate-armoured swordsmen. But now it's more reasonable.

[Stravo]

I find it sad that I spent hours downloading this patch last week and just cannot find the motivation to fire up the game and try it out because of the time commitment involved. I can get my fix right now by playing a quick skirmish on CC3 without spending hours playing MW2. Guess I played myself out (various factions/regions/Styles) and now the excitement's not there, at least not now. I wonder how many other folks feel the same way?

[Netko]

Total war games are good that way - you play them out till you're bored to tears each time you run them, but then if you leave them alone for a few months they're suddenly fresh and fun again. Guess seeing a lot of people get chopped up in a game that at least attempts to be something more then the usual RTS clickfest with wortless troops never gets old.

At least to me - I've been reinstalling MTW1 every year since it came out, Rome a bit less, and MTW2 I'm reinstalling just now for the second time. Throw in Shogun there as well, although MTW1 totally surpassed it, so it wasn't in the rotation.

[CaptHawkeye]

At least to me - I've been reinstalling MTW1 every year since it came out, Rome a bit less, and MTW2 I'm reinstalling just now for the second time. Throw in Shogun there as well, although MTW1 totally surpassed it, so it wasn't in the rotation.

Something that bugs me about MTW2 is its size. It's something like 9.5GB. The game consumes a huge amount of real estate on your hard drive. So it's painful for me to keep it installed because it takes up a lot of space. But god damnet, it's such a fun game at the same time.

[Ghost Rider]

Update: I just confirmed for myself that the cannon/ballista tower bug is fixed ... by crushing the living fuck out of a French army that tried to attack my citadel at Marseilles.

Just a notice for anyone who cares: the absurdly overpowered New World troops have been dialed back to a more realistic level. You no longer need to bring cannons and musketeers to take those pajama-wearing primitives down. They are now quite vulnerable to cavalry charges too.

I took down four full-stack armies with a single army of English armoured swordsmen, retinue longbowmen, and English knights. No gunpowder required.

It was utterly ridiculous before the new patch: pajama-wearing primitives kicking the shit out of plate-armoured swordsmen. But now it's more reasonable.

Awesome.

Especially the New World being toned to reasonable levels. I remember my first encounter, laughing, then mouth agape as they assraped my troops without lube.

Now it's time to teach those bastards to love the Spainish.

[Darth Wong]

I find it sad that I spent hours downloading this patch last week and just cannot find the motivation to fire up the game and try it out because of the time commitment involved. I can get my fix right now by playing a quick skirmish on CC3 without spending hours playing MW2. Guess I played myself out (various factions/regions/Styles) and now the excitement's not there, at least not now. I wonder how many other folks feel the same way?

What can I say? Any game that demands such a large time commitment is one that you can't just sit down and play in a spare moment. Another weakness of M2TW (not that I dislike the game, which should be obvious since I keep playing it) is the era. Forget all those people who say the medieval era is an ultra-cool setting for a Total War game; the Roman era just "feels" more epic by its very nature. You're Caesar, for Bob's sake. And the different factions have very different styles of warfare, which makes it more interesting from a tactical standpoint. All the European factions have similar units in M2TW, which is reasonably accurate to history but makes for less interesting units.

Something that bugs me about MTW2 is its size. It's something like 9.5GB. The game consumes a huge amount of real estate on your hard drive. So it's painful for me to keep it installed because it takes up a lot of space. But god damnet, it's such a fun game at the same time.

That's one of the reasons I upgraded all of my machines to 320GB hard drives, and put a 500GB hard drive in my fileserver. HD space is so damned cheap nowadays, why skimp?

[NRS Guardian]

I've noticed the campaign AI has been improved, allies are more faithful, enemies will negotiate a ceasefire with your faction when attacked on two fronts, and it seems like the campaign AI is more aggressive.

I played around with English dismounted knights and heavy billmen since the two-hander bug was fixed, and now they rape cavalry.

[Dartzap]

Having got bored with C&C for the time being, I just reinstalled MTW2. I can only hope I can remove myself from the chair this evening

[haard]

Finally! Must reinstall!

Of course, my regular DoW:DC sparing partners will be upset, but screw them.

[Vympel]

I'm in my "leave it alone" stage right now as well- playing other games, but fully intend to go back and try new things now that the patch is out. I played the shit out of it, wore myself out, and am getting ready to return. It requires a time investment you might not have all the time, so you split it up amongst smaller, bite-size games you can drop in and out of.

For that matter, I finally got Alexander- so I'm going to re-install Rome and Rome: BI as well - finally take advantage of my more powerful system compared to my old PC.