Exilian

Game Design and Project Resources: The Workshops Quarter => Total War Mods - The Engineer's Shed => Mods, Maps & Game Add-Ons - The Bazaar => Warhammer; Total War => Topic started by: Jubal on September 05, 2013, 04:09:42 PM

Title: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 05, 2013, 04:09:42 PM: Okay, there is now a rough timetable for the full release.

From NOW until next TUESDAY I will be giving people who sign up here testing copies.

From the 11th to the 18th I'm out of the country and playtesters will be able to spend that time filing bug reports or balance issues

On the 19th I'll blitz fixing balance issues, with full release being the 20th or 21st probably.

SIGN UP HERE and the first few people and/or people who can persuade me they'd be most useful will get a playtesting copy. I'm not planning to give out more than about five or six, maybe ten at maximum, so do hurry!
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: comrade_general on September 05, 2013, 04:47:30 PM: I think I'm a given here? :P
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: slayergr on September 05, 2013, 04:59:18 PM: Reporting for duty sir ! My university doesnt start until mid octomber so I have tons of free time for play testing.And I really wish to examine the new units in terms of gameplay balance
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Clockwork on September 05, 2013, 05:03:49 PM: I shall take up this cause mighty Jubal. R2 is disappointing and I've got no college until 16th so I'll be sitting on my arse until then.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Talonmaster on September 05, 2013, 07:55:33 PM: Ive got plenty of time aswell ;D
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: goldfang on September 05, 2013, 07:57:24 PM: aight

im quite anxious to play this and help out any way i can
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 05, 2013, 09:59:46 PM: I'd like to try - assuming i can manage to download it at my parents' house (their internet connection isnt the fastest)

EDIT : going to be at my own house after all so downloading shouldn't be a problem
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: goldfang on September 05, 2013, 10:37:41 PM: are you gonna wait untill next week or are you gonna give it to us tomorrow or somefing?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: goldfang on September 05, 2013, 10:39:03 PM: pardon me

but i seem to have misplaced my eyes

didnt see the message >.<
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: wotringe on September 06, 2013, 11:53:45 AM: Here I'm for the testings :)

Do you have a to-do list, test every faction etc...?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Gen_Glory on September 06, 2013, 01:01:59 PM: I can test
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Clockwork on September 06, 2013, 04:53:56 PM: I would assume treat it as a regular test by which I mean: Test as many factions as you can for as many campaign modes as you can, assess cost-effectiveness of units instead of purely effectiveness e.g instead of 'Zombies suck' 'Zombies are weak but useful for early game expansion because of their low cost, as the game progressed however they became useless/were still a viable unit as a meat shield and to use siege equipment'.

Also custom battle matchups to see unit vs unit if they're supposed to be comparable. Remember to spoiler it ;)
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 06, 2013, 05:19:49 PM: Won't it be more efficient if we each try the campaign as a different faction too, so we're not duplicating finding the same errors as much?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Clockwork on September 06, 2013, 05:29:26 PM: Duplicating errors is good, it means it's not a one off problem. Also balance is more easily addressed if everyone is saying something like 'Ironbreakers have too much attack and not enough defence compared with Chaos Warriors(nearish equivalent)', one persons idea of balanced is not necessarily everyone elses.

EDIT: Just making assumptions here but Jubs not present at the mo and we've got our files to get started ;)
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 06, 2013, 05:41:29 PM: Ah right ok i see your point - if it's duplicated it shows its not just a random crash but an error ?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Clockwork on September 06, 2013, 05:49:43 PM: Yeah pretty much, it means it's more likely to be an error with the game than a crash caused by hundreds of possibilities. And the more specific the details on an error the quicker it can be fixed ;)

EDIT: Somebody correct me if I'm wrong :)

EDIT2: Issues
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Unlocalised placement for descriptions of:

Dwarf ironbreakers
Luccini Pit Fighters
Vampire Counts Zombie Giant
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 06, 2013, 08:02:26 PM: Rob wrote
Quote
but Jubs not present at the mo and we've got our files to get started

Where are they/ where can i download them?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 06, 2013, 09:36:18 PM: I'm sending them as PMs.

In other news, check your PMs. :P
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Talonmaster on September 07, 2013, 12:25:27 AM: I like the idea that every one of us should playtest a different faction in campaign.
That way it doesnt get so confused.
I TAKE CHAOS DWARFS!!!!

After that we can get on to the next one so we might see duplications of bugs etc.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 07, 2013, 01:28:17 AM: Will do - thanks
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 07, 2013, 06:42:19 PM: Played a brief Skaven campaign. No errors as such, but it seems pretty impossibly hard right from the start. Apart from your capital - which is easy to keep due to the character you start there with - two of the three other cities are so far from your capital and have so few buildings (and no characters) that you have to recruit units to stop them rebelling, but if you do that then you immediately go bankrupt even with your capital on Very High tax rate and the Lustria one on High - so maybe put another building that gives happiness or a character with some influence into each of the other two (building likely better as a character's bodyguard has to be paid).
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 07, 2013, 09:17:58 PM: Oh also why aren't skavenslaves and clanrats zero turn recruitment and very cheap to recruit any more? I really liked that in the beta and it fits very well with skaven being able to bring up hordes from underground suddenly.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 08, 2013, 12:15:08 AM: Playing as wood elves the Empire repeatedly allied with orcs and goblins in two different games - which seems pretty wrong.

On top of that while i was able to save games fine in my first wood elf campaign, when i changed the options to Huge units and started again the save and load game buttons were greyed out and couldn't be clicked. They stayed greyed out even when i quit that campaign and restarted with large and then normal units again.

EDIT : Save works again after quitting Rome Total War and starting a new campaign with options set back to Huge Units again
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: comrade_general on September 08, 2013, 03:05:09 AM: What do you mean by repeatedly allied?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Tiler on September 08, 2013, 03:00:40 PM: Hi, I've been following the development of this mod for quite some time. Registered today since I'd like to ask to playtest. I don't have much qualifications other than I've played too much total war and I am pretty decent at writing reports when things break.

I was planning on first trying out a short campaign or two, and then spend an inordinate amount of time trying to break as much as I can, gameplay wise.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 08, 2013, 06:04:27 PM: Quote
What do you mean by repeatedly allied?

I just mean in two different games, both of which i was wood elves, Altdorf allied with Orcs and Goblins in both of them.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 08, 2013, 06:05:44 PM: Skavenslaves and clanrats seem to have the same pay as wood elf units which are many times superior to them. Don't understand why. Thought it was better in the beta when skavenslaves and clanrats cost peanuts - they are very poor units and skaven are meant to come in huge hordes after all.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Talonmaster on September 08, 2013, 10:14:55 PM: Im playing Chaos Dwarfs with large units with so far only one bug that I saw in the Ogre kingdoms when I toggled the FOW off
They conquer one rebel settlement south of their capital and they leave a garrision but then,just out of town,their army has now stood immobile for like 5 turns now without goin for the next settlement
CDs have a good starting position and troops so I didnt even have to use cheats to pimp them up a bit.
Diplomacy is obviously still a prob and funnily there are more alliances and ceasefires each turn than in vanilla
The Dwarfs even offered me Trade rights ;D
Theres a Tutorial on moddin Diplo,you just have to go to descr_strat,scroll down and then you can see the relations and give them values
(600=ally -600=war or maybe the other way around.
Ive played Skaven quite a lot in custom and they should,I think,definetely be cheaper and faster in combat
In all the books Ive read Skaven are lightning fast which is one of their main advantages
Plague Monks are a bit OTT,you should just give them 2 hitpoints and berserk cos they are always described as frothing,mindless and frenzied zealots and if you want to have one unit with morale boostin chant you could still use the same model and make one smaller unit of Plague Priests which chant and do magic(green fire balls?) and one large unit of Plague monks who are tough berserkers
Stormvermin animation should be replaced with fs_2handed so they dont look like they committed suicide
Giant rats are awesome!!!!!!!!!
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 08, 2013, 10:23:55 PM: Talonmaster wrote

Quote
Diplomacy is obviously still a prob and funnily there are more alliances and ceasefires each turn than in vanilla

That would actually be an improvement if evil and good factions weren't allying with each other all the time.
Quote
The Dwarfs even offered me Trade rights ;D

Again probably down to no good Vs Evil in the Rome Total War Engine. Maybe it'd be possible to make all the good/neutral factions permanently allied for the whole game? I don't know. You could count Araby and Middenheim as evil even though they're not really so they could still be at war with Altdorf , Brettonia and Tilea if they're AI controlled.

Quote
Ive played Skaven quite a lot in custom and they should,I think,definetely be cheaper and faster in combat
In all the books Ive read Skaven are lightning fast which is one of their main advantages

Definitely agree on both price and movement speed. Wages especially for skavenslaves should probably be zero and clanrat wages low.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: wotringe on September 08, 2013, 10:43:10 PM: I just lauched an DE campain and all seem to be working. The game doesn't crash like in the previous version :D
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: comrade_general on September 08, 2013, 10:48:01 PM: Quote from: Dunadd on September 08, 2013, 06:04:27 PM

Quote
What do you mean by repeatedly allied?

I just mean in two different games, both of which i was wood elves, Altdorf allied with Orcs and Goblins in both of them.

Next time you notice them make an alliance, check the next turn to see if they are still allied, because it should be cancelled the next turn. :)
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 08, 2013, 11:31:00 PM: Ah right - ok, i see - will check
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Clockwork on September 09, 2013, 01:33:21 AM: Duellists seem to be way more powerful than other comparable light melee troops. It's 50/50 whether they beat Empire Swordsmen.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: pro5281 on September 09, 2013, 03:40:09 AM: Great to see you guys up and running. I would have loved to be a game tester but im out of town for the next week. if you need any further testing the following week I would be happy to assist. Good feedback so far it seem though so congrats guys
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: slayergr on September 09, 2013, 12:17:14 PM: Quote from: Rob on September 09, 2013, 01:33:21 AM
Duellists seem to be way more powerful than other comparable light melee troops. It's 50/50 whether they beat Empire Swordsmen.
They may look more powerfull in stats but dont forget that there are only 40 without a shield making them very vulnerable to missile fire.....also its the only light inf of the luccinese since the marines dont have the morale to withstand large fights so its the only thing that cna guard the rear of the phalanx .
I believe that the Lizardmen need a buff.....the temple guard is only 10-14 as a stormvermin !!!!!
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: slayergr on September 09, 2013, 12:24:58 PM: Quote from: Talonmaster on September 08, 2013, 10:14:55 PM
Im playing Chaos Dwarfs with large units with so far only one bug that I saw in the Ogre kingdoms when I toggled the FOW off
They conquer one rebel settlement south of their capital and they leave a garrision but then,just out of town,their army has now stood immobile for like 5 turns now without goin for the next settlement
CDs have a good starting position and troops so I didnt even have to use cheats to pimp them up a bit.
Diplomacy is obviously still a prob and funnily there are more alliances and ceasefires each turn than in vanilla
The Dwarfs even offered me Trade rights ;D
Theres a Tutorial on moddin Diplo,you just have to go to descr_strat,scroll down and then you can see the relations and give them values
(600=ally -600=war or maybe the other way around.
Ive played Skaven quite a lot in custom and they should,I think,definetely be cheaper and faster in combat
In all the books Ive read Skaven are lightning fast which is one of their main advantages
Plague Monks are a bit OTT,you should just give them 2 hitpoints and berserk cos they are always described as frothing,mindless and frenzied zealots and if you want to have one unit with morale boostin chant you could still use the same model and make one smaller unit of Plague Priests which chant and do magic(green fire balls?) and one large unit of Plague monks who are tough berserkers
Stormvermin animation should be replaced with fs_2handed so they dont look like they committed suicide
Giant rats are awesome!!!!!!!!!
The skaven dont need any buffs.....The plague monks offer ecxelent morale 2 hitpoints and average def making them very sustainable a cahnt and a great frigheting ability....Also the jezzails are just op! Ingredibly long range and they have the most powerful ranged attack...they can easily tear through even nurgle chaos warriors and Ironbreakers (defs 26 and 40)!!!
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: comrade_general on September 09, 2013, 01:03:19 PM: Quote from: Talonmaster on September 08, 2013, 10:14:55 PM
Diplomacy is obviously still a prob and funnily there are more alliances and ceasefires each turn than in vanilla
The Dwarfs even offered me Trade rights ;D

That's the diplomacy script working like it should. The only way to prevent alliances is to cancel them after they are made.

Trade rights don't really affect anything. :P
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Talonmaster on September 09, 2013, 05:25:55 PM: Its just a bit funny thats all
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Talonmaster on September 09, 2013, 05:30:11 PM: Quote from: Dunadd on September 08, 2013, 10:23:55 PM

Definitely agree on both price and movement speed. Wages especially for skavenslaves should probably be zero and clanrat wages low.

With faster I actually meant that their attack anims should be quicker
You can edit that quite easily in the EDU
But your idea is also good
Does anyone know how to edit a model/skeletons movement speed?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: slayergr on September 09, 2013, 07:15:11 PM: Quote from: Talonmaster on September 09, 2013, 05:30:11 PM
Quote from: Dunadd on September 08, 2013, 10:23:55 PM

Definitely agree on both price and movement speed. Wages especially for skavenslaves should probably be zero and clanrat wages low.

With faster I actually meant that their attack anims should be quicker
You can edit that quite easily in the EDU
But your idea is also good
Does anyone know how to edit a model/skeletons movement speed?

The skaven are a horde army and they should be vulnerable to missile and artillery fire...if they are fast moving you wont get any shots at them ! I strongly believe that the lizardmen need some buffs both in attack and defence...they arent the feral and tough warriors that they should be...Any other opinion on them? Also the chaos and bone giant need their priced increased.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 10, 2013, 05:14:22 AM: Playing the campaign as wood-elves and i noticed that trade has been nerfed down to practically nothing, making it almost impossible to maintain garrisons and a field army once you get a bit into a campaign. I took two Brettonian cities and it was the same with them - never got trade income of much over 100 gold for any city no matter how many markets, bazaars, ports, trade caravans etc i built. Does not make for fun play in that respect. I do love all the wood elf units and all their buildings other than the nerfed trade buildings though.

Has trade been nerfed for all factions or just for wood elves? Either way, would prefer it un-nerfed.

p.s why do walking woods only have attack and charge bonus 1? I thought they were meant to be some kind of ent/treant/huorn type thing, though i havent bought any warhammer army books since 3rd edition in the late 80s.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 10, 2013, 10:58:04 AM: Walking woods are more like the Wood Elf walking forest spell (can't remember what it's called) - the idea is that it's a big scary forest that moves around, but that it's really a holdup/mobile terrain more than it is an attack unit.

Most provinces don't have their trade goods placed on the campaign map, which may be an issue with trade? Not sure.

EDIT: Also, Tiler, PMed you the link.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Tiler on September 10, 2013, 02:51:51 PM: I started playing a Skaven campaign.

I'm going to echo what others said: the upkeep for units is pretty wonky right now. Skavenslaves are only really good for population reduction, the 160 upkeep is pretty damn brutal. The skaven starting position is pretty painful as well due to distance penalties. I wound up just only keeping the Lustrian province and letting the other two non-capital cities revolt since the cost-benefit didnt work out in their favor. In lieu of using early skaven units, I just used merc forces. I'd imagine later game skaven armies would be mainly stormvermin rather than bothering with any of the lower tier units just due to upkeep price.

The starting skaven leader is an absolute monster, and his unit is by far the best unit in their starting roster. Its ironicially really difficult to use horde strats. as skaven just due to their crappy early economy and expensive unit maintenance, so the early battles with rebels, I was outnumbered and only won due to how great his unit was.

Also skaven generals that come with the level 3 settlement only cost 50 gold, which means you could probably make an army out of generals. Itd let you avoid having to build up any of the skaven recruitment buildings but it would be incredibly silly. Probably be annoying since you'd lose your entire unit if the warlord died and skaven generals get that -1 hp trait.

Skaven jezails are broken. Their high damage combined with their armor pen. and high accuracy results in them murdering anything and everything by themselves. Took a rebel province and two of them killed 732 rebels and the rest of my army killed... 28. And at only 100 upkeep, they're no pain to keep around. They made my entire force redundant. Maybe if they shot a lot slower?

Skaven don't get too many +happiness buildings and quite a few population boosters, so I'd imagine later in the game that revolts would be a constant problem, especially in the far flung provinces. Having that combined with cheap skavenslaves would actually work out okay, since it'd encourage players to recruit masses of units for the purpose of having them die horribly.

The flavor text is nice, and the units look good. No problems with the map so far, or any sort of glaring issues on the campaign side. I'd wonder if it'd be a better move to change some of the more far flung factions into seperate factions, just due to how big of a pain the huge distance to capital penalty is. Probably already at the limit, though.

e: You cannot recruit stormvermin! Well you can, but they all count as generals! At only 50 gold. Clanrat spears cost 150! Same upkeep too. Swords cost 100 but only have 120 upkeep. This probably should be looked at.

Had a battle against Araby. They brought 2200 men. I brought 500 rats, with 320 of them being jeezails. They lost. I'm not even that good at exploiting Total War AI: jezails are just brutal. The only thing that can touch them is cavalry, and even then, they have pretty high stats for fighting in melee.

Also speaking of stats, everything with a shield I've seen has only 1 shield defense. Not sure if that is intended. It probably contributes a lot to what makes jezails nasty: usually units get 2x bonus to their sheild defense, which doesn't amount to much. Meanwhile, armor only counts half for them due to their AP ability, and they do a very large amount of missle fire damage. Did I mention jezails are broken yet? :V

Giant rats bark! Its adorable. They're also very, very good for their cost.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Tiler on September 10, 2013, 05:54:57 PM: And that's likely the end of my Skaven campaign due to a persistent crash bug. No idea whats causing it.

Save is here: https://mega.co.nz/#!1Yw1UKgS!aox_FkG5WVnCYWLw3UwQ0WQGVZIzBcx6lpmx0dloUjY

Complete the turn in whatever way, game crash is during the turn change.

e: More specifically, during the Hordes of Chaos' turn. I watched the AI movement with toggle_fow off and it didn't really give any clues.
Also noting that faction income seems to be pretty low. It seems off when the skaven find themselves outnumbered more often than not due to income limitations.

e2: Reloaded an earlier save, was able to play past date. Seems to be a problem with RTW instead of this mod.

e3: I'm having tremendous problems with Unrest, which frequently sits 50-80% in all my provinces. I'm not sure what exactly is causing this, but this combined with the 80% distance penelty means that expansion in Lustria as skaven is a huge pain.

e4: Characters are getting a crazy amount of traits. Its very excessive. All of the ones I've seen have enough that you have to scroll down to see all of them.

e5: Completed Skaven campaign. Tried out the majority of their units as well. They're a weak faction right now due to the amount of unrest and the high upkeep of their troops; you have to station large bodies of skavenslaves in cities to keep them calm, which costs a very large amount of money. Lord help you if you capture anything bigger than a large town; the culture penalty will make things absolutely wretched. Building the "farm" chain with them is a major trap right now since the last thing you want to do is encourage growth since it just leads to very large and angry settlements. Skyre buildings are pretty awful as well since they give big bonuses to growth without much in the way of order; I could only maintain a select few and those settlements produced the bulk of my fighting force with jezails. Clanrats are pretty awful which is fitting, but their unit sizes are actually not that large. Other special building units are cool as well.

Dealing with order problems is a real unfun headache. If it was meant as a means to add difficulty, I'd rather just have the AI get free money to build doomstacks with than have to sit around for twenty turns trying to deal with boring and frustrating city management issues. I'd even spring for buildings that reduce population growth or have some sort of trade off that would make it so I don't have to deal with a sea of blue and red faces glaring up at me at the start of every turn.

On the factions I fought and AI behavior: AI never started a war with me. They were pretty easy to ally with. Did not see any braindead army compositions. I liked the faux Italian's names, but unfortunatly their roster is really, really vulnerable to jezails. I destroyed them fairly easially because of that. Their cavalry is pretty strong; I found the skaven actually can't deal with heavy cavalry that well (at least without Stormvermin); my solution was to engage them with fodder and flank them with guns, which tended to kill everyone involved, which was okay with me.

High Elves gave me problems with their Silver Helms cavalry, since they had high morale and only half of them tended to die by the time they reached my guns. Took over their island, which was very slow going since I couldn't move my armies from cities without sparking revolt, despite said cities having been exterminated down to 400 (very irritated) people.

Tomb Kings are flat out nuts. I only fought them a bit before winning, so I started a campaign as them. Mother of Mithra, they are good. Huge! units of skeletons which are basically immune to morale effects. Said skeletons are no slouches and are in fact superior to several standard infantry statwise. Units are very cheap and spammable. Stability wasn't an issue for the short amount of time I played, but I'd imagine it'd get worse as time went on since they only get 10% order bonus more than skaven and get to deal with a whole lot more buildings that lead to city growth aka never ending pain. Notable though that the two Tomb buildings can be built alongside many faction's "temples". Taking tomb cities as skaven was pretty awesome due to that. I had all my taxes on low and built any building I could, and even with maintaining two stacks I found myself with 5k or more at the end of turns I could waste on mercs. Enemies tended to break on contact due to combination of the scariness of the undead units / flaming arrows / chariots. All battles hilariously one sided. I could probably finish this campaign in less than two hours at this point and I only started an hour ago.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Cornholio on September 11, 2013, 01:51:14 PM: i got no time, hopefully someone gives them dark elves a good testing
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Tiler on September 11, 2013, 08:58:35 PM: I played some Dark Elves!

Corsairs have the same stats as the Dark Elf Spears, down to the "effective against cavalry" boon. Corsairs don't have "fast run speed". If corsairs were some kind of light skirmishers or something it'd balance out the Dark Elf early roster better. I assume. Unless there's something I'm missing.

Speaking of corsairs... its a bit obvious and I also guess it's impossible to deal with in the engine, but the Dark Elves are actually in a pretty awful position to try sea based attacks. Their unique boats are fast but thanks to engine quirks, they cant move armies any faster than a regular boat, so its a bit difficult to move your armies where you want them to be due to all the empty space. Its a very, very isolated start. A very low pressure early game. You could probably get most of your victory provinces just taking over the north before fighting the High Elves.

As it is, the early Dark Elf game is... kind of anemic. Lots of moving infantry armies around in vast empty jungles to pick fights with rebel villages. If the beastmen/undead in the region were a bit more aggressive it'd make things pretty dicey, but they're content to sit back and not do much. High Elves are expansionist, though.

Cavalry are expensive enough that I haven't really sprung for them, so I haven't got the full Dark Elf army experience. Dark Elf armies don't have any glaring problems; compared to tomb kings their units are smaller and more expensive and don't offer much in return, but on their own, they're well rounded and I didn't see anything that leapt out aside from the corsair/spearelf similarities. Crossbowelves are pretty effective so far but are not overpowered. Witch Elves don't actually make any noise when using the Screeching ability. New World Natives carry large shields and have no armor, but have something like 4 armor and 0 shield.

Will add more as I continue to play.

e: Actually expanding north is very painful. Bloodletters are very strong units. Berserk in general is a very powerful trait, especially on large units with a lot of armor. Had an army fight outnumbered against them and be annihlated, then had a larger force with Cold Ones and light cavalry support, and I still very nearly managed to lose, only scraping by due to gradually wearing them down with constant crossbow fire and cavalry charges. I don't think I lost a single field battle as Skaven, but with Dark Elves, I've lost around four.

Looking at custom battles, there's a few factions without a super powerful unit. Dark Elves have a well balanced force, but its not much compared to things like Bright Wizards, mechanical Taruses, Jezail spam, or other units capable of destroying armies fairly easially. Also, there's a few more "hacked together" units that, while fun concepts, don't work well in practice. Flying Carpets get a nasty bug where enemy units still try to fight with them when they're dead, landmines should probably only be capable of "shooting" once since as it is they're real terrors. Walking Woods just... well, they look really funny in action and when routing, at least.

Also the naval AI for the rebels cheats a bit. They will path from anywhere in the ocean to attack a boat sitting in some forgotten cove; I have a nice screenshot of about 6 rebel navies in my waters, having come there from all across the world to pick a fight with my one naval unit.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Clockwork on September 12, 2013, 12:06:35 AM: I still can't see unit abilities and such, same as the screenies I sent you before Jub.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 12, 2013, 07:47:38 PM: Jubal wrote
Quote
Most provinces don't have their trade goods placed on the campaign map, which may be an issue with trade? Not sure.

Any chance of adding a few in for each province?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Tiler on September 17, 2013, 12:05:10 AM: Okay, I ran through the early stages of several campaigns. Here's just a miscellaneous run through of things I encountered.

- "Unrest" is a pretty big problem for a lot of factions to deal with. I don't recall it being a major problem with vanilla RTW so I assume its something thats been modified in. Its not really fun to deal with with any group, but certain factions lack big bonuses to add happiness to settlements or cheap units to sit in cities. A lot of the "barbarian" factions have this problem. This is harder to tell without playing a full playthough, since I also noticed buildings for Barbarian factions were not showing up past the third tier (Dragon Islander's temples are an example). Factions should really have some means of getting at least +75 order in a settlement, even if its a pricy/slow means to do so. Wood Elves in particular look nigh unplayable in the long term. Factions with split starts also have major difficulties with disorder due to "distance to capital" issues.

- Shields are pretty inconsistent. Most units with shields have a shield value of '1', which is basically nothing. Dragon Islander's Long Shields have 5 which is the highest I've seen. Several units do not have shield graphics but have shield armor value, such as Djinni and Knight Errants. Many others have shields but have 0 shield value such as Eastern Spears and Hobgoblins. Shield values in general seem to be either low or nonexistant, which makes missile troops very powerful. I've had AI units dissolve while trying to mount a charge into a group of archers. Wood Elf glade riders are also very powerful as well.

- Speaking of the dragon long shields, they seem to have a very high ammo count for their very damaging projectiles. I would imagine since they're pretty heavily based on legionaries, they should only get two. In any case, they basically annihilate any infantry that isnt a berserker unit.

- There are a few units that are very, very powerful, but honestly they're such a blast I don't care. Guys like the the djinn, bright wizards, giants, and those Chaos Dwarf mechanical bulls should have high cost and upkeep though to counter the whole "we can destroy an entire army solo" power factor. They're hilariously fun to watch in action, in any case.

- A few more creative units don't seem to work well with the engine. Araby flying rugs cause problems when they die where enemy units keep trying to fight with them. Landmines in general seem sort of wonky and just don't really fit in, and Walking Woods... well, they're funny when they're running away, in any case.

- As others have noted, there is virtually no income from trade.

- Some of the AI factions are very passive. Skaven, Undead, Dark Elves, Orc, Beastmen, Lizardmen, and Kiev do not expand much at all. Chaos expands quite a bit, but they take a long time to take over the rebel settlements and come into conflict with other factions. I don't know what triggers AI expansiveness, but I think the lack of income from trade and high disorder caused from distance from capitals might have something to do with it.

- Undead probably should start with economic buildings. Their expense of their generals means that they start off with a very tiny income and them and wood elves are the only two factions where the AI attacked my initial provinces. Their start is very difficult. I'm not surprised the AI can't do much with them.

- Generals gain an excessive amount of traits.

- AI Tomb Kings run roughshod over AI Araby very quickly every time I play.

I'll add more to this post later as I continue playing. I know there's stuff I forgot to write down. I'm having a lot of fun with this, I hope you continue to work on it.

e: Also sorry if some of the stuff I'm writing are things you can't modify at all. I know there's a lot of things hardcoded like the CAI and other mechanics, but I don't know how much you're able to influence or mitigate, so I'm just writing whatever I encounter that seems off.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 19, 2013, 10:54:59 PM: Thankyou all for the fantastic work so far, I've started on fixing some of the key problems and will respond to more points tomorrow. Do keep reports/tests coming in as much as you all can, it's all really useful. :)
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 21, 2013, 10:33:22 AM: Trade is now much better; I've basically given each province 1 resource which isn't much but is enough to get some trade running at least. Took a long time though.

Balance issues for units are next step I think.

Unrest isn't something I've done anything to at all; I'll give some factions bigger happiness & law boost options to counteract it more easily. The temples should go up to T5, but on the building browser will only show to T3 as you can build 3/4/5 at the same city level. Does the L4 show up after you built L3?

Walking woods/landmines/carpets are admittedly problematic but I find them quite amusing and they add some interesting tactical options that one wouldn't get otherwise. No idea why generals are getting excess traits.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Tiler on September 21, 2013, 03:06:55 PM: Yeah the trait thing is weird. Its a clean install of Rome Total War Gold Edition on Steam, and its not like you're changed the values, but generals really, really quickly get a laundry list of traits. The amount of unrest is odd as well, but that could just be my memory of vanilla being skewed; I don't remember provinces being stuck with 80% stacks of unrest without having a city full of foreign spies, but if its something that can't be influenced, then its just my memory thats off.

And yes, I'm able to build to T5 temples, at least with the Dragon Island guys, where I noticed it. Its not a problem.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 21, 2013, 11:49:52 PM: slayergr says steam tanks are not working for him - can anyone confirm/deny this?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: comrade_general on September 22, 2013, 01:02:17 AM: Confirmed; message-less CTD.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 22, 2013, 11:03:27 AM: Weird, they work wholly fine for me :(

At what point does the crash occur?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: comrade_general on September 22, 2013, 01:34:29 PM: When starting the battle the loading bar gets about a quarter of the way.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Grey_Seer76 on September 22, 2013, 03:37:16 PM: Hi, new to the forum and aching to get my hands on the warhammer mod, I found this site via google but cannot find the final download despite searching the site and the date given for release was yesterday, help please :P

PS as a long time total war fan and a warhammer player I hope you can forgive my excitement. Also as a side note I have always found that RTW offers more tactical challenges than any other game and I look forward to playing my favourite faction (the skaven, the BOnd villians of the warhammer world) and getting my hands on the Chaos Dwarves!
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 22, 2013, 04:27:57 PM: Played as Araby. Fought tomb kings a lot.

Tomb king Bone Giants seem massively hard to kill/ a bit OP, unless they're meant to be? didn't have djinn mages in that battle but likely couldn't have used them if i had due to the bone giants' speed and apparently area effect combat?)

Djinn mages seem to be able to wipe out Tomb King chariot bodyguards a bit too easily - after softening the chariots up a but with camel or horse archers i can destroy a tomb king chariot bodyguard unit almost instantly with a single volley each from two units of Djinn mages.

A single unit of djinn mages can mostly destroy or rout most other units with a single volley too.

( I was playing on huge unit sizes which might make the mages more powerful)

The chariots seem weaker and less aggressive than they were before, only using archery and almost never charging - maybe need more hit points and/or higher archery rating?

Finally tomb kings units need to all get 100 morale so they're proper undead that don't rout (if they've not got it already - i have noticed tomb kings units routing many times but only when they took very heavy casualties first)
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Dunadd on September 22, 2013, 04:32:38 PM: Grey_Seer76 wrote
Quote
cannot find the final download despite searching the site and the date given for release was yesterday, help please :P

The currently released version (not the final one) has it's own thread in the forum here (http://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1981.0). It doesn't have the full range of unit types for some factions and you sometimes get crashes you can't reload from in campaigns, but it's still fun to play.

The final version isn't finished yet - Jubal might still send you a play test version of it by message here if you ask him.

If it's too late for that don't worry, final version should be released soon.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 24, 2013, 11:53:15 AM: so nad news - I've ocome down with a heavy fever and my head feels like a brick, so not really able to do much at the moment. I'll get back to things when I'm better again. :(
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 25, 2013, 08:38:12 PM: URGENT - can everyone who reads this and has the test copy check whether steam tanks work for them (load them up in custom battle) and report back. Thanks. :)
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Tiler on September 25, 2013, 11:14:55 PM: Crash on battle load.

I could have sworn I'd seen them in a custom battle before, though.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 26, 2013, 12:03:21 PM: Damnation! They work fine for me :(
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 26, 2013, 12:10:52 PM: Found the problem!

The Empire lesser general didn't have the right skeleton option. As long as you don't make the Tank the general's unit it *should* work. Can someone try that?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Tiler on September 26, 2013, 02:15:49 PM: They work in that case for me.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 26, 2013, 02:37:27 PM: Fantastic - they'll work properly regardless in the final release :)
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: comrade_general on September 26, 2013, 03:59:16 PM: Huzzah.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 27, 2013, 12:25:26 PM: OK, I think playtesting can now be offically called closed. :)
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: wotringe on September 28, 2013, 09:39:52 AM: I don't know why but I got a bug on wood-elves campaing who doesn't allow me to save. And the game didn't auto-save. I'll try to look for an explanation...
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on September 28, 2013, 12:15:40 PM: Occasionally there does seem to be an odd effect where the buttons go greyed out, yes.

This is related to the campaign script, and according to some stuff I've read on the issue it happens when you start a campaign, exit it, then start a new campaign without closing/reopening RTW. My advice is that as a work-around you close the game and re-open it again whenever you want to start a new campaign.
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Scarlet on October 01, 2013, 06:09:28 AM: Not a bug, a feature :P
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Warhammer78 on October 01, 2013, 06:43:04 PM: Congratulations on the new version!

I recently downloaded the mod.

What is missing in the mod?

The Ui card info?
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on October 01, 2013, 07:15:03 PM: The new version should have all the UI cards working...
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Warhammer78 on October 01, 2013, 07:35:54 PM: Yes, they have all the UI card units.

I mean the ui cards / unit_info (inside the folder "UI / unit_info").
Title: Re: Playtesting signups and release timetable
Post by: Jubal on October 01, 2013, 09:34:13 PM: Oh, yeah. Those ones don't appear much anyway so we decided it was a bridge too far in terms of time needed. (Unlike the main UI cards which are critical for seeing which unit is which fast in battle).