Total War: Rome 2 patch 8.1 goes live, patch 9 in the works

Will the snows of technical issues give way to the thaw of a fine game? Who knows.

I wonder if anybody at Creative Assembly got much of a Christmas holiday? Perhaps not, if Patch 8.1 going live for Total War: Rome 2 is any indication. If you’re losing track of what, precisely, is in all of these patches, then I don’t really blame you. This one is focused on battle (siege especially) and a couple of campaign fixes.

With Patch 8.1 released (it should update, or ask you to update Rome 2, automatically on Steam,) the developers are now going to be getting on with Patch 9. According to the employee who posted news about Patch 8.1, Patch 9 will be “expected to enter public beta soon.”

For now, you might want to read over the latest patch notes (below,) or read of my review of the recent Caesar in Gaul expansion.

Patch 8.1 – Build 9066.483605

Technical and Performance Issues

Battle

• Fix for dark squares which appeared on the battle terrain, whilst using the “Shader Model 3” graphics setting.
• Improved performance on the medium Rome siege map.

Campaign

• Resolved an issue that caused the UI to become unresponsive when the Triumph video plays at the end of a campaign.

Gameplay Improvements
Campaign

• Improved AI parameter balancing: increased tactical focus and aggression, especially for major factions in both Grand Campaign and Gaul Campaign.

• Improved campaign AI raiding behaviour. AI factions are now more likely to raid during campaigns.

Battle

• Siege artillery now uses flaming projectiles appropriately (when attacking walls and towers).

• Fixed an issue in siege battle AI which could lead to the general’s unit exposing itself to attack when trying to use its special abilities to support assaulting units on walls.

• Fixed a range of issues with the AI’s interaction with walls in siege battles, enabling the AI to conduct a more effective assault using siege towers and ladders.

• Improved the tactical co-ordination between different sub-groups of units when assaulting the walls in siege battles. When the AI attempts to enter the settlement via the gates, it is now able to do a better job of first eliminating the threat of boiling oil.

• Fixed an issue which caused units to march off in a random direction when reforming on a siege tower.

• Improved the behaviour of units when a unit on the ground is ordered to melee-attack a unit on the walls.

• Boiling oil no longer causes incendiary damage (so won’t burn battering rams for example).

• Improved pathfinding when attacking units on walls with units on the ground or vice versa.

• Improved attacking siege AI’s interaction with walls, and its use of battering rams.

Usability Improvements

Campaign

• Fixed a bug that made it impossible to exchange units during a multiplayer campaign, unless the “Turn time” option was set to “unlimited”.
• Fixed a progression blocker in the Grand Campaign, which occurred when a “Triumph” video played (celebrating a high ranking Roman General). This prevented the player from continuing the game, by making the games UI become inactive.