An enormous patch for Total War: Shogun 2 will add new maps, castles and a huge list of bug fixes and balance changes along with the release of the Rise of the Samurai DLC later today. The Creative Assembly have posted a full patch list on the Total War forums and it is HUGE.
The highlight has to be the free castle pack. This adds three new castle structures including one top tier fortress, which will be "considerable larger than any other castle in Shogun 2." The new structures won't turn up in the Rise of the Samurai pack, but will be added to normal campaigns, and can appear across five different maps. A new time limit in siege battles will encourage attackers to be a bit more proactive. You'll now have 45 minutes to climb the walls and take the central keep.
The patch also adds eleven new battle maps, and a number of tweaks have been made to the multiplayer side. Changes made by the patch will let The Creative Assembly hold free XP weekends, and there are dozens and dozens of balance changes. Get the full list below.
Free castle pack
Three newly-designed castles specifically for the Shogun 2 campaign map:
1 standard sized castle of new configuration
1 standard sized castle on a clifftop with limited approaches
1 top-tier castle, considerably larger than any other castle in Shogun 2
Each castle appears across five maps, resulting in 15 new siege battle-map variants.
These maps do not appear in the Rise of The Samurai DLC campaign.
Multiplayer balances and tweaks
Influence point changes:
Corruption and logistics: clans will suffer a cumulative 5% cost in influence point gain for every province beyond 3 that they own (with a maximum penalty of 95%).
Points loss: Every time a player loses a match-made battle, they will lose 50% of the clan influence they would have gained for a victory.
Filters:
A number of filters have been added to help display the strategic situations of your own and other clans in the clan competition.
You can now cycle through and view all other worlds in the clan competition as well as search for a specific clan and view the world they are operating in
Filters have been added to sort retainers into smaller concise lists based on units and weapon restrictions.
Rewards:
There is now a series of rewards for players whose clans are promoted:
Winner of clan competition (Mon, Crest, Helmet)
Promotion into tier 1 (Mon, Crest)
Promotion (Mon, Crest)
Avatar promotion and prestige:
Upon reaching level 10, Avatars can now be promoted to a new Prestige level and re-play the avatar conquest mode.
Coloured ranking stars are now used to define the current Prestige of an avatar: Bronze; Silver and Gold
Upon promotion to a new Prestige level, the avatar’s skill-tree is reset, but his units retain their veterancy, and he retains any armour pieces, retainers earned through armour pieces and clan tokens
Upon promotion to a new Prestige level, Avatars gain +10 Veteran Slots
Higher-Prestige avatars require consequently more XP to level, and cost more to field.
Matchmaking
Match-made battles will now prioritise avatar level when attempting to match players, taking into account ELO rating.
General UI improvements:
The XP bar on the avatar screen now shows current and required XP for a rank increase
Avatar rank is now shown on the pre-battle setup screen of all users
The player’s current number of clan tokens is now displayed on the skills tree
Locked icons have been added to retainer slots which currently can’t be used
Units and retainers which cannot be used in the next battle have been made more visible.
Stats
Ladder and overall stats have been rearranged for clarification and ease of use.
Battle UI:
An avatar’s primary skill-set is now displayed on the avatar’s banner in battles. This is based on the skill tree with the most skill points spent within it.
Siege Battles:
Time limit added to siege battles (45 mins)
The small funds bracket has been removed from match-made siege battles
The Kyoto and Buatsui castle maps have been removed from match-making map pool
New Maps
11 New battle maps have been added:
Chubu Pass
Chugoku River
Ehime Gorge
Gunma Field
Hokuriku Crossing
Kansai Wood
Kanto Plains
Koshinetsu Ridge
Saga River
Tohoku Forest
Tokai Valley
All non-key building maps have been removed from the match-making map pool.
Naval Battles:
Funding bracket adjustments
Small: 5000 (no change)
Medium: 10,000 (down from 14,000)
Large: 18,000 (down from 24,000)
Drop-in Battles
Avatars now get awarded XP if the player participates in a drop-in battle
The amount of XP awarded is double the base win/loss XP for avatar battles
Free XP weekends
The ability to run XP multiplier weekends is now in the codebase. We’re now planning a series of weekend events in which individual unit types, Avatars, specific clans and more can gain experience and veterancy at increased rates, and drop-rates for legendary items and retainers can be increased.
Keep an eye on Steam and the Total War forums for more information in coming weeks!
Head to the next page for the full list of multiplayer balance tweaks and bug fixes.
Multiplayer balancing
Retainers
Tetsu-Bishi Caltrops: spear and missile units’ bonus vs cav increased from +3 to +4
Camp Sickness: missile units’ speed debuff increased
Gokamon Bodyguard: avatar melee defence increased from +5 to +6
Scroll of Inspirational verse: avatar melee attack increased from +3 to +4
Supply Wagon: missile units’ extra ammo increased from +5 to +8
Kacchu-Mochi Armour-Bearer: avatar armour increased from +3 to +4
Mouldy Feed Stocks: enemy cavalry fatigue resistance debuff increased
Uma-Jirushi Nobori Standard-Bearer: avatar morale buff increased from +2 to +3
Lightweight Gunjingura War Saddle: cavalry speed buff increased from +5% to +10%
Zori Tori Sandal-Bearer: avatar fatigue resistance increased
Yabusami Master: avatar accuracy and reload speed increased from +5/+5 to +7/+7
Untrained Fugu Cook : Effect now applies to sword infantry only
Trading Post: cost decrease for all units reduced from -5% to -4%
Drill Square: sword infantry melee defence bonus reduced from +3 to +2.
Yagyu Sword Instructor: sword infantry melee attack bonus reduced from +2 to +1.
World Weary: accuracy debuff reduced from -5 to -3, melee attack debuff reduced from -2 to -1
Multiplayer units
Loan Sword Ashigaru: cost from 400 to 500
Bow Warrior Monks: cost from 1000 to 1100
Matchlock Ashigaru: cost from 400 to 500
Great Guard: cost from 1200 to 1300
Daiyku Samurai : cost from 1000 to 1100
Fire Bomb Throwers: cost from 700 to 600
Yari Hero: cost from 1550 to 1200
Bow Hero: cost from 1650 to 1500
Katana Hero: cost from 1600 to 1500
Naginata Warrior Monk Hero: cost from 1700 to 1500
Kisho Ninja: cost from 700 to 600
Matchlock Samurai: cost from 700 to 650
Bow Cavalry: cost from 650 to 600
Naval units:
Bow Kobaya: cost from 850 to 500
Fire Bomb Kobaya cost from 1050 to 700
Medium Bune: cost from 1800 to 1550
Fire arrow ability added
Siege Tower Bune: cost from 1550 to 3000
Sengoku Bune: cost from 2000 to 1800
Cannon Bune: cost from 4000 to 6000
Heavy Bune: cost from 2400 to 2000
Fire arrow ability added
Admiral Heavy Bune Fire arrow ability added
Unit caps introduced:
Land units
Loan Sword Ashigaru 4
Bow Warrior Monks 2
Matchlock Ashigaru 3
Matchlock Monks 1
Matchlock Samurai 2
Naginata Attendants 5
Sword Attendants 6
Great Guard 1
Bow Cavalry 3
Naval units
Cannon Bune 1
Fire Bomb Kobaya 4
Siege Tower Bune 4
Matchlock Kobaya 6
Medium Bune 6
Sengoku Bune 6
Nihon Maru 1
O Ataka Bune 4
Heavy Bune 6
Bow Kobaya 6
Veteran Skills
Matchlock Accuracy upgrades reduced
Sword unit melee attack skill upgrades reduced
Sword unit charge bonus upgrades reduced
Bug Fix list
Achievements:
The Mastery of the waves achievement will no longer unlock in rare instances after a land battle
AI:
Naval AI will now attempt to repair damaged ships
Path finding improvements for Naval AI when near to land
Siege Battle AI improvements, in larger games especially, the AI will be much more reactive to player actions
Several battle AI improvements.
Multiple Campaign AI improvements, including new AI weighting to prevent attempts at raiding when sieging castles.
Fixed Wako Pirate fleets occasionally remaining idle after spawning in campaign
Art:
Updated Avatar skill icons, both in UI and in battle to allow visual identification of avatar type
Improved appearance of campaign on low spec machines
Audio:
Several voice over audio fixes for in-battle VO
Voice over and audio fixes for Campaign map A bit too similar
Campaign
Fixed post battle lockup
Public order and town wealth growth penalties on High and Extortionate taxation levels were greatly reduced
Fixed issue with religious agents incorrectly modifying chance of success of bribe actions
Fixed rebels spawning inside zones of control
Fixed multi-turn incite revolt orders not being cancelled when a there is a rebellion in target province
Apprehend action now costs money
Improved flee behaviour for bribed characters
Fixed case where a coastal assault battle would involve the castle
Fixed multi-turn attack orders not being invalidated by successful bribes
Fixed being able to order more recruitment items from a general than there is room to display them
Fixed issue where discovered characters may not update the pathfinder correctly
Fixed issue where bribe system would incorrectly invoke diplomacy UI
Fixed issue where flee orders would crash in some circumstances
Fixed issue where leave settlement orders would crash in some circumstances
Fixed several retainer and trait effects
Several text tweaks to make the application of specific effects clear (local, global, etc.)
Siege model have sound now
Various AI fixes and tweaks
Combat:
Fixed infrequent issue with projectile damage during the increased range skill for Matchlock Warrior Monks (Matchlock Warrior Monks)
Fixed a cavalry charge bug that would allow cavalry to maintain a charge bonus despite not charging
Crashes:
Fixed a number of Multiplayer campaign desyncs
Fixed Crash when returning to main menu after completing a multiplayer campaign
Fixed a rare crash on exiting a multiplayer land battle
Fixed a crash when the user attempts to quick load whilst the game is displaying an FMV
Fixed uncommon crash during intermediate land tutorial
Fixed soft lock when attempting to view certain battle ranking statistics in the Multiplayer avatar system
Fixed infrequent AI recruitment crash during the Chosokabe campaign tutorial
Fixed soft lock during steam invites when on certain screens in the Multiplayer avatar system
Player is no longer able to accept invites to play a Multiplayer game without creating an avatar, preventing a rare crash
Fixed a crash that occurred in Multiplayer game when the user selects the request alliance button after breaking the alliance on the diplomacy screen
Fixed soft lock that occurs when deleting a save game generated during a battle
Fixed D3D graphics crash that occurred very rarely on creation of new avatar
Fixed a soft lock that occurred when declaring war on the vassal of another player in a Multiplayer campaign
General:
The possibility of unchecking all battle types and searching in made multiplayer battles has been removed
Added a limit to veteran names, preventing unreadable names on the battlefield
Avatar colour scheme now defaults to the army colour scheme when first created
The escape button will now cancel rather than confirm skill point allocation in the campaign map
AI will now recognise switching sides cost changes during a custom battle setup screen
Rank differential penalty will no longer be applied to Campaign drop-in battles
New 100% bonus modifier for winning a drop in battle
Ikko Ikki Loan Sword Ashigaru are now fully playable as the Ikko Ikki clan in Campaign and custom battle. They are recruited from the Castle chain
The Goldfish Scale Sashimono no longer floats above the avatar model in multiplayer battles
Fixed a rare issue in which banners and mons would not save correctly in a multiplayer battle replay
Avatar statistics will correctly update after playing a battle list battle in multiplayer
Several campaign missions have had their bonuses tweaked or reworked
Cannon Bunes are now able to fire at will correctly in all situations
The Highlight tooltip occasionally got imposed on the campaign map when quick saving, this is now fixed
Fixed a rare error that would cause the Leaderboard in multiplayer to not display with the message “Error: Requested Profile could not be found message when selecting Leaderboard”
Updates to the Multiplayer avatar conquest map
Multiplayer clan competition UI reworked to allow viewing of multiple tiers
Multiplayer Naval fund brackets adjusted
Fixed inability to use the cycle through generals button in campaign if more than 13 generals were available
Multiplayer unit balancing, see multiplayer announcements for further information
Fixed several bugs within the retainers in the Multiplayer avatar system
Scare enemies now correctly functions at all times in Multiplayer battles
Fixed the possibility of Multiplayer units levelling up mid battle and gaining stats in certain larger games in Multiplayer land/siege battles
Drop in battles can no longer rarely unlock two regions from the same battle
Fixed a server issue causing Avatar profile details to not be retrieved correctly
Post battle xp calculations are correctly taking into account several new variables and tweaked values
Katana of the pure land is no longer being incorrectly displayed as a legendary retainer and will drop slightly more frequently
Fixed several hyperlink within the Encyclopaedia leading to incorrect pages
Multiplayer army management UI now scales to display all units correctly without overlapping
References to gold in the multiplayer system now reference Koku
Player list in Multiplayer campaign now displays correctly if dragged across to another point on the screen
Locked units are now viewable in the Multiplayer army management screen
Fixed an issue when the player would be set as the attacker instead of defender when selected in custom battles
Fixed a rare issue caused by attempting to add retainers during Multiplayer pre-battle setup
Home key now selects and zooms to the General in battles
Fixed a rare occurrence in multiplayer that would cause scroll bars to not appear
Avatar rank will display correctly in stars during the post battle screen of a multiplayer match made battle
Fixed an infrequent bug that would cause avatar competition regions to not display correctly
UI art fix for ink blot style graphical errors appearing on unit cards in the Multiplayer army management screen
Fixed an issue that would cause Avatar xp to display incorrectly when coming out of a match made battle
Matchlock troops veteran skills rebalanced in Multiplayer
Multiplayer unit caps implemented, see Multiplayer announcement for details
UI fix to address the rare bug that would limit the amount of veterans that could be displayed
AI players in Multiplayer and custom battles will no longer display the players steam picture and rank
Post battle Avatar xp bar will now fill correctly if the avatar gains enough xp to gain a rank
Rank 0 Avatars will now have the correct 0 star in pre-battle chat lobbies in Multiplayer
Weighting for mission generation will now always correctly fire a relevant mission in Campaign
Minor text/grammar fixes