Fall of the Samurai, the expansion to Total War: Shogun 2, released earlier this week. What may have escaped your notice, however, is the huge patch that was applied on the same day. While it was considered a Fall of the Samurai patch, most of the changes/additions applied to the base Shogun 2 as well. Highlights include improved AI (and drastically reduced AI turn time) as well as a whopping 22 new battle maps! A large number of fixes and unit balance tweaks were rolled out as well.
You can check out the full patch notes below:
Total War Shogun 2: Fall of The Samurai - Patch Notes
Headline additions – also available to Shogun 2 players
• 40v40 unit battles available via ‘control large armies’ option in Custom Battles and Multiplayer
• Numerous Battle and Campaign AI improvements (see Battle and Campaign sections below)
• Greatly reduced save-game file sizes and full Steam Cloud support
• Battlefield load time improvement (approximately 30% dependent on machine spec)
• Greatly reduced AI turn-time
• 22 brand new Land, Naval and Siege battle-maps
Full patch notes
The majority of these also apply to Shogun 2.
General fixes/additions
• Fixes for known multiplayer campaign desyncs
• Introduced option to auto-trigger abilities through right-clicking
• Towers can now be ordered to fire at specific targets
• Domination (capture all points) victories added for multiplayer
• General optimisations across all areas of the game
• Ability to queue technology tree research
• Ability to set groups to AI control
• Ability to lock group formations with new UI button
• Fixed missing siege models
• New front-end background camera pans
• Campaign AI turn-times reduced due to pathfinding optimisations
• Naval campaign AI improved significantly
Naval battles
Fixes:
• Fixed attack intercept position when in and around islands
• Fixed bug where some submerged ships did not surrender
• Fixed several rare crashes in naval battle.
• Improved circling behaviour for all ships
• Improved range detection for Fire Bomb Kobaya
• Removed stop-start movement for AI ships moving in a group.
• Improved target selection for naval AI
User Interface
• Modified the Standard Camera in naval battles to ensure that the horizon is always visible.
• Added UI toggle to battle HUD (bottom left corner), so can hide UI elements
• Mousing over unit cards now highlights the corresponding unit as if mousing over them
• Double pressing group frame or double pressing group number shorcut zooms to groups
• Added lock formation button for groups; groups act like did before, locked into formation by default, but can be unlocked to behave like a selection group. This provides an easier interface for players just wanting selection groups. (Can still quickly create a selection group pressing ctrl+g, which can also be used to toggle lock)
• Added UI support for more units in a single battlefield, card system now goes onto double rows when required
• Cursor no longer gives option to attack unmounted horses, as doing so would give order to attack riders which could be confusing
• Inspiration range now drawn for all units with inspiration aura, not just for the general (like hero units)
• Added ship schematics to info panel for boshin ships, to provide more detail on ships state
• Fixed graphical issues with naval fire arcs in night battles
• Added player names to MPC tooltips
• Added fade transitions to info panels
• Unit cards now coloured based on unit category
• Added support for unbound keys, so can disable shortcuts rather than having to give obscure shortcut
• Added page numbers to tooltips
• New group frames to support double rows, and now highlight when moused over or group selected; as well as showing group number rather than japanese number for easier access via shortcuts
• Multiplayer postbattle screen reworked
• Added option to invert camera's x-axis
• Can now move around battlefield when battle results present
• Can no longer use debug camera from preferences while in multiplayer battle
• Fixed text running off battle tooltips for some gempei units
• Fixed bug where info panel would not update while paused during a replay
• Bridge icons on battle radar given better image, and now orientated correctly
• Fort walls now visible on radar map/loading map
• Pings placed on invalid terrain no longer appear in middle of map
• Ship tooltips/cards number of men take into account officers
• Inactive battle hud buttons have tooltips
• Fix for rotated UI images behaving incorrect when running widescreen resolution
• Fix for realism mode setting being lost for campaign
• Officers taken into account for ship numbers on unit cards/tooltips
• Fixed in game chat highlight issues
• Building info panel resizes unit entries dynamically to fix unit names being clipped in certain languages
• Can now use context and tracking cameras in replays
• Fixed issue where pasted invalid characters into text inputs
• Neatend effect bundle tooltips so not larger than need to be
• Can now double click on ground in battles to move to that location
• Drag out units display now shows two arrows when will result in run on release, 1 arrow when will result in walk
• Improved target/path marker spline quality so doesn't stretch out, and head now represents movement speed of unit it represents (so know if running or walking to current target)
• Added ability to view replays at end of battle/replay, rather than routing player back to front-end then back into battle
• Post-battle screens now appear for replays
• Tweaks to main menu button animations
• Fix for inconsistent naval crew-icons on ship cards between front-end/campaign and battle
• Battle-lobby countdown timer moved so retainer panel not obscured
• Tweaked UI banner-scaling (slightly smaller) and UI splines brought closer to ground (fire arcs, paths, etc)
• Fixed cinematic borders not always being flush to edges of screen, resulting in gaps at top and bottom
• Added UI to toggle auto-triggered abilities. Right-clicking on a supported ability button will toggle it to auto-trigger, where the AI will decide when to use the ability, in order to save the player some micro-management.
• Chat-toggle button now hides all chat when currently visible rather than input, and button is highlighted when player has unread messages
• Group number shortcuts are now rebindable
• Moved pings to left-click rather than right-click for UI consistency
• Realism mode changes: radar visible during deployment, morale visible on minimal tooltips
Campaign
• Fixed rare case where pre-battle camera would trigger too early if an agent or neutral army was between the attacker and the defender under certain circumstances.
• Campaign variable "family_rounds_between_wife_offers" now also determines the earliest round a wife can be offered
• Stopped generating movement extents for armies on the pre-battle screen
• Fixed rare campaign lockup caused by an agent being forced out of its reserved area
• Fixed very rare campaign lockup involving an ambush across a land bridge, where an agent or third party neutral army is between the acting army and the ambusher
• Fixed multi-turn AI actions against the human player causing the game to drop out of speed-up mode even though the action will not complete that turn
• Changed format of campaign height-map to reduce load time and significantly reduce memory usage
• Fixed very rare crash caused by autosave saving an army in an incorrect order
• Fixed bug when issuing orders to agents on navies against target agents in armies
• Fixed trade-route tooltip which showed only one imported resource per route
• Fixed a rare lockup caused by a successful agent action causing an army to move, whilst another army is also in motion under certain circumstances
• Fixed rare crash when two multi-turn embark orders – to embark two different armies onto two different navies – resulted in an attempt to perform both embarks at the same port
in the same turn
• Fixed rare crash caused by the Daimyo's brother not being demoted from command of an army when the Daimyo dies while there is a superior general in the army
• Fixed a few issues with commerce-raid value updates when merging and splitting raiding navies
• Added information about when a diplomatic action would be considered dishonourable by other clans
• Selecting an agent in an army now shows the agent’s movement extents.
• Improved rope visuals on campaign map buildings
• Fixed trade-route information not being updated when a port is damaged
• Fixed obscure issue which prevented other factions’ movement extents showing if they had military access to player’s territory, but player did not have military access to
theirs.
• Modified several game areas to fail gracefully instead of crashing when loading incorrectly modded data
• Various memory-usage optimisations
• Fixed being able to get more than three agents in a city
• Fixed unusual crash in pathfinder related to blockaded ports
• Fixed crash in event-log system
• Fixed crash when issuing an order to a previously merged army
• Fixed crash related to capturing artillery
• Fixed bug where reinforcement armies solely comprised of units that can't enter as reinforcements (such as artillery) were counted as reinforcements in pre-battle
• Fixed bug where region ownership for unseen rebel regions was visible
• Fixed bug where attrition-indicator showed on rebel banners when they weren't suffering attrition
• Fixed crash when bribing cities that are under siege
• Fixed issue with missing army-templates causing lockups
• Fixed crash in sound tracker
• Fixed crash in agent-options dialog
• Fixed issue with ‘surrender imminent’ message
• Fixed issue where certain melee and charge bonuses were not working correctly in battle
• Fixed issue where shroud was updated many times when a Clan dies, causing some slowdown
• Fixed unit exchange issue when in ports
• Fixed issue where some characters destroyed in battle remained alive
• Fixed issue where pre battle UI appeared in odd order when player was playing as AI in MPC
• Fixed issue where campaign thought ships needed 0 crew to function
• Fixed case where MPC players are forced to spectate an AI-vs-AI game
• Fixed issue where MPC co-op allies received message that enemy is retreating when allies are retreating
• Fixed issue where ambush cursor did not show for characters in garrisons
• Fixed bug where a force would act on incorrect orders after capturing units
• Fixed issue where recruited agents were unable to enter the settlement they were recruited from on the turn they were recruited
• Fixed missing building name in ‘legendary building built’ event-log entry
• Player now gets full spying information on a force after attacking it
• Improved campaign experience-handling
• Removed timer from certain battles to prevent exploit
• Port selection marker is now centred around the flag
• Armies now only get region-unrestricted replenishment in enemy regions
• Tweaked some message events to be more informative
• Various campaign load-time and memory usage optimisations
• Reduced memory usage in front end startup process
• Reduced campaign animations memory-usage
• Improvements to campaign building-display resource usage
• Fixed religion/allegiance zeal display in religion tooltips for more than two religions
• Various mission bugs fixed
• Fix to clear military crackdown repression on handover of region
• Only primary generals now get full XP in battles; generals commanding reinforcements get reduced XP
• Technology goal can be selected to guide auto-selection of next tech when research completes
• Save games: compression and other size reductions to make files dramatically smaller; Steam Cloud support added
Battles
• When units are climbing walls men can now fire their bows or guns when at the top of the walls while men in the same unit are still climbing
• Movement arrow now appears when units are ordered onto positions on zones such as fort walls
• Fixes for units not being able to fire at units behind fort walls in certain circumstances
• Unit destination proxies (shown on space bar) now update when the game is paused
• Fire arcs now only turn off when ‘fire at will’ is off and melee mode is enabled
• Improvement to display of fire arc facing when defending a zone (e.g. on a fort wall)
• Fix for not being able to turn off fire at will when defending a zone (e.g. on a fort wall)
• AI unit shooting-line analysis tweaks
• In siege battles where the AI is attacking, artillery can now deploy on multiple lines.
• Units now change their tactic state more effectively if they are idle and under fire in siege battles (when AI is attacking)
• Stopped units behind fort walls being unfavourably targeted by artillery
• Fixed several fort-reinforcement AI bugs
• Stopped units from being issued attack orders when they are climbing fort walls
• Stopped units from prioritizing the capture of distant towers in siege battles
• Fixed several bugs with idle cavalry during AI-attacking siege battles
• Fixed bug where AI was unable to place units on a sensible fort approach
• Fixed strange movement bugs in AI fort defence
• Fixed rare crash-issue resulting from a scenario where the player enters a battle with no units because they are reinforcing another player, and all their units are artillery (which cannot be deployed as reinforcements)
• The ‘last stand’ morale state, triggered when castle defenders are fighting to the death, now imposes penalties on ranged accuracy and reload rate
• Battle AI is more likely to deploy cavalry on both of its flanks, allowing for greater opportunities when flanking and executing a double envelopment
• Fixed an issue where naval reinforcements sometimes did not fully enter the map
• Introduced a variety of improvements to the battlefield AI's use of outflanking and double envelopment manoeuvres, making these tactics more effective overall
• Fixed a rare issue where some reinforcement units did not enter the battlefield because they were not correctly resized to avoid obstacles outside the playable area
• Battle AI now performs a deeper analysis when it decides between walking and running, resulting in the AI moving more swiftly when appropriate and tiring its troops out less often
• Fixed an issue where ships left a battle with incorrect experience data, causing them to gain experience prematurely
• Fixed an issue in Battle AI which delayed its ability to move to a good defensive position outside its deployment zone once the battle starts
• Fixed several issues in the way that the Battle AI assembles and holds a defensive line. The AI is less likely to reform when an enemy is near, and will be more stable when holding the line
• Battle AI now does a better job of advancing a firing-front towards an enemy, by performing a more robust selection of a direction from which to attack
• Mounted shooters now avoid shooting through friendly units before firing in the same way that infantry shooters do
• The duration of the friendly-fire penalty has increased from 6 seconds to 30 seconds
• When trying to set buildings alight, archers no longer continue to fire on buildings after their flaming arrows are spent
• When a unit is within range of multiple friendly passive inspiration auras, it is now given a bonus equivalent to the largest single aura; the multiple auras do not stack. Previously only the commanding general's aura was ever applied
General multiplayer fixes
• Fixed issue where a veteran unit could gain its statistics bonus prematurely during the battle, once enough experience points had been earned but before the end of the battle
• Fixed issue where LAN server browser contained wrong information
• Fixed some crashes with multiplayer
• Improved chat-room population system
• Fixed issue where battle voice was not working
• Fix for rare case where land units could be taken into naval battle
MP abilities
• Stand and fight: melee attack bonus reduced from 3 to 2
• Standand Fight: reload bonus reduced from 10 to 5
• Hold firm: melee defence bonus reduced from 6 to 3
• Rally: morale bonus to non-routing units reduced from 2 to 1 (bonus for units already routing is unaffected)
• Naval whistling Arrows duration halved
• Special abilities for towers
MP unit caps
• Kisho Ninja capped at 4 per army
• Mounted Samurai capped at 3 per army
MP retainers
• Infantry officer: +1 morale
• Way of the Ikko-Ikki: +1 morale, +2 melee defence & +5% cost for monks and ashigaru
• Rennyo's teachings: -1 melee attack, +3 melee defence all units
• Stricken unholy forge: -1 armour to enemy melee troops
• World-Weary: -1 morale (enemy veterans)
• Shirabyoshi dancer: +1 morale (veterans), +5% cost (monks, nuns)
• Naginata Warrior Monk Cavalry no longer affected by retainers affecting all monks, to bring them in line with their Samurai equivalents.
MP skills
• Fire by rank: cost reduced from 250 to 120
• Rapid Volley: cost reduced from 250 to 120
MP key buildings
• Reduced morale bonus from Shrine
MP unit costs
• Yari hero (decreased from 1200 to 1100)
• Bow hero (decreased from 1500 to 1400)
• Bow ashigaru (decreased from 450 to 400)
• Matchlock ashigaru (decreased from 500 to 450)
• Bulletproof samurai (decreased from 1000 to 950)
• Nuns (decreased from 900 to 850)
• Tetsubo monk hero (increased from 800 to 850)
The following brand new Fall of the Samurai maps will also be made available in Shogun 2:
Land battles:
• Awa Ridge Pass
• Gigu Crossing
• Happo Ridge
• Ishiyama Ruins
• Iwaki Foothills
• Jigokudani Valley
• Kawabe River
• Kurobe Gorge
• Nishizawa Valley
• Osaka Plain
• Ubayu Onsen
• Usui Pass
Naval battles:
• Hokuriki Coast
• Seto Inland Sea
• Tohuku Sea
• Tokai Coast
• Tsugaru Straits
• Sea of Japan
Siege battles:
• Iburi Castle
• Satsuma Castle
• Uzen Fortress
• Wakasa Fortress
EDIT: Additionally added fixes
Rally (land & naval)
Active time reduced to 60; recharge time reduced to 180
Hold firm
Range reduced to 30
Active time reduced to 30
Stand and Fight
recharge time increased to 45