Patch did not solve my crashing issue. Guess it's time to really restart a new campain...

I do hope they manage to iron out all the stability issues before really focusing on units and balance.... which will usually be better modded out anyway.

My Save that was crashing on the Huron AI turn is still crashing after the patch.

I have recreated a new campain (go France!) and will see. I still find the main campain map getting laggier and laggier as time goes as well.

I think today's one is for a bug they created in yesterday's fix for people who had a non-English game. They could not basically start the game anymore due to a language issue in Steam patching (like it was installing English patch on a Polish game... which does not work so well)

So nothing fixed except this I guess. I read yesterday on TW forum they were supposed to bring an Hotfix on it in late yesterday (in their time zone)

Yap, the crash to desktop is really my biggest issue at the moment and completely stopped me in my tracks in enjoying the game.

Yesterday I wanted to start a new campain... thinking of doing again Britain since I enjoyed them but:

- I know they are going to bug out with the Huron or the Inuits at one moment or another.
- AI so far in 99% of the case will not transport troops by ships so will never try to invade UK... so kinda "cheesing" it and not fun

So I started with France but I was really "meh" with it, I played 3-4 turns then left the game to do something else.

It's defeating the purpose of the game to not be able to go through a whole campain... or at least fearing the crashes at any time.

I am sure once the patches are out and stability great the game will keep me busy for a long time, but now I feel cheated to have paid to do beta testing

Yar, as GB you can just delete any army you have in the GB country as the AI will almost never carry troops by ships. Some people on forums did report that they saw sea invasion happening but it's really really really rare (I have see 2 such claims without screenshots so far).

Personally I never saw one and I reached half the long campain with GB, nobody attacked me there even though i left it totally undefended. I was also playing around in India and never saw any other Europea power carry troops there (even Portugal which has a colony there at the start)

Talk about something bumming for a game putting focus on sea battles and domination

Yar, they do pretty good job at blockading your ports or pirating your trade lines, at least something.

About the no-transport-of-troops-by-boat thinggy many people have reported it on the forums so I think CA is aware of it.

About the sieges it's indeed pretty stupid to defend because movings troops on the walls is just plainly frustrating.
I end up "defending" by lining up my troops in the courtyard and shooting at the ennemies that manage to crawl over the walls.... super realistic from that period's sieges right?

On normal land battles I find the AI to be "honest", nothing too fancy but they do try to flank you with cavalry (and they sometimes do it pretty well), there is way less "suicidal generals" charging first etc. Some of my battles have been pretty intense especially if you are outnumbered.

I like sea battles but I find if you have more than 6-7 ships on your side it's kinda tough to handle them all properly (cant imagine how would a full stacked battle be)

Overall the game has really lots of potential (I repeat this because I do not want to have people think I am just bashing the game) but it was released like a month or two too early imo... I am also confident it all the defaults will be ironed out, either by mods or CA

RTI worked fine for me without bugs or crashes too (the loading of Bunker Hill took super damn long for me but that's all)

But in the GC I am damn scared of doing anything with the Huron or Inuits as they are my main culprits of making the game crash during their turn.

I think with all the save games folks have uploaded to CA they should have plenty materials to find at least some common reason to all of them. I hope next week patch will fix a bunch of them, the rest can wait later for me.

Yar, these battles are really long.


Now my new campain is also crashing to desktop (the "normal" whitescreen then windows shit)

I think I am just not going to touch ETW until they fixed that, it's just a steaming pile of bug right now for me...

For me after a random number of turns in the Grand Campain I get the "white-screen-then-crash-to-desktop" bug during AI turn.
And even if I reload my saves I will still get it sooner or later.

So basically for me I cannot simply go very far in a Grand Campain... which take out totally all interest to the game for me at the moment (I am done with the RTI campain)

So well... I do hope early next week patch will solve these since we just cant return back the game to the shop (since it's link to your Steam account now).
Until then I am not touching it, I have free games that may not have the shiny shiny graphics of ETW but at least they run.

I feel CA focused way too more on eye candy and not enough on the basics of the game (stability, AI, gameplay)

Nice picture Kianweic

Boon.fong: I am personally hoping big on the patch CA is supposed to release early next week (from their announcements), it seems to be slightly bigger than the one we had last week. If that one does not fix the white-scree-crashes-to-desktop I might just give up on the game and come back to it in few months once they settle down.

I am still kinda new to Steam but from what I believe is that when you uninstall a Steam game it will still show in Steam under the "Not installed" section.
If you reinstall you should not have to activate through Steam again, just maybe patch if a patch was out since you uninstalled.

At least that's how I understand the process as well, games are linked to your Steam account, the physical files on your computer are another thing altogether I just uninstalled DoW2 since I need space and it now shows under the "Not installed" section.

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Mar 14 2009, 12:12 PM

Try to get a better IP or something, that's usually the reason why I cant log on to Steam.

Good IP depends on where you stay though, just test it out.

Good to see more people getting the game

I personally never had an issue in the RTI campain, all my crashes and corruption occured in the Grand Campain, which is pretty weird.

@LeoLilieno: the CTDs and co are pretty "random" apparently. Some people do not get them at all, some do once in a while, some (like me) can't simply finish a Grand Campain without it being corrupted. I wont discuss pirated games here much but they are bound to have this "randomeness" in it as well, it's a coding issue so original or not have a chance to crash.

Anyone has any update on the patch planned for this week? I can't seems to find any information on it or any planned release date.
I so hope they can fix the CTD issues >_<

What I usually do once I have Canister Shot is to put artillery in between my front line infantry.

Like:

1 Infantry, 1 artillery, 1 infantry, 1 artillery etc.

Adapt it to your own army composition obviously, you do not need many artillery units (3-4 is good) but line infantry should be your bread and butter in your armies

Keep your general quite back behind, not just behind your line. If you keep it too close there is some chance the opposite artillery will kill him by targetting your first line (cannon shots are not precise) which can drop the morale of your line quite quickly.

Keep Cavalry on the flanks to push back any ennemies trying to flank you, or put some infantry units at an angle on the flanks.

Canister shots + musket fire should more or less take care of much of what the ennemies will launch at your main line.

I find this strategy to be pretty simple and efficient, once you are a bit more used to fighting the AI it's possible to win pretty easily.

Oh, and I find the "rating" of the battles (Close Victory, Heroic Victory) etc to be pretty much broken, I sometimes completely destroy the ennemy until he has almost no unit left or routing without taking much damage and I get only a "Close Victory" while we were using more or less similar strenght armies. So do not bother too much with that.

For research try to go for the bayonets upgrades quick and more importantly "Fire Rank" (I do not remember the exact name, it's the talent that let your line infantry fire on 2-3 ranks instead of only the first rank). This might be one of the most important tech in the whole game as it really increase your firepower by a LOT.

Edit: As Abyssio said, I had some bad experience with artillery in second line with canister shots and Friendly fire, which is why I now put my artillery in first line

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Mar 16 2009, 01:49 PM

I noticed friendly fire with canister shot mainly but also if the artillery tries to target something closed and you have troops in front of it.

But artillery can be pretty stupid and target a melee pwning your own troops as well.

@Kianweic: I got the game and time but the crash to desktop means the game is pretty much useless for me at the moment so well... >_<

I kinda enjoy the battles too.

And you can win battles you would loose in auto-resolve if you do them yourself (and I am far from being a Napoleon or Wellington) or at least save some men (the auto-results are usually pretty costly even if you win).

But I still use auto-resolve if the fight is too easy (like full stack against few militia units) or if the fight is not really important.

The "Gatling" you guys are talking about is the Ottoman's special weapon no?
They have this organ gun thinggy which is supposed to be pretty powerful yar. I have not faced it yet (my campains all get corrupt before I can get close to this level).

God I am so frustrated with not being able to play the game >_<

Yar, first I spend 2-3 turns to construct some troops in your first city, then go for the city just north-east of it..

Once you are done with this, I Personally went for the two zones north of it then went back down.

The start can be tough I agree (I restarted few times to get it down, as an advice, keep a save just after Bunker Hill to be able to restart the scenario without having to redo Bunker Hill) but once you are started UK are no match.

I did not bother spending too much trying to bring France to my side as the ally AI can be sometimes pretty much useless and let yourself die.

The Indians were scary sometimes (they have lots of troops) but I managed to keep them happy with some state gifts.

I conquered only the Indian tribe that was at the bottom south (near Spain colonies) since they attacked me first.

That's why I did not rush Main in the first turn, I spend few turns building up more troops before going for it, to make sure I have enough troops to hold my two towns.

If you manage to keep enough troops in your starting town the AI should not come to bother you from the south or west (the AI is pretty "weak" and does not try to attack your cities if you have enough defenses), in my game he only tried to sneak up from the North of Maine but with my main army sleeping in Maine I was able to push them back without too much issues.

You will need to "weather the storm" for a while, after few armies and few turns the AI will not have more bit armies to send you and he will mainly bring his units few at a time.

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Mar 17 2009, 10:07 AM

Yap, same here, after a while my GC will always get white screen CTD during AI turns and my saves get corrupted.

Waiting on the next patch now, was supposed to be early this week from what CA said, so either today or tomorrow I hope. I bloody hope they fix the CTD crashes >_<

For now the game is just not stable enough for me to bother playing online (or solo actually).

But once they fix the white screen of death (I pray for next patch) I could be tempted to try... but I am never tried any TW battles online so well.... hope you guys are not sifu level already

I am also totally noob on Steam community stuff...

My Community ID is Gormaz, hope that's what you need (and not my Steam Account name which is different)

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Mar 17 2009, 11:39 PM