The first update for Total War: Warhammer is due for release tomorrow (30 June) at 2pm BST, adding beta DirectX 12 support, a gigantic list of changes, and some free Blood Knights for the Vampire Counts.
Here’s confirmation from Creative Assembly that the release time will be 2pm BST. That’ll be 6am Pacific (US), 9am Eastern (US). The stated intent for this first patch is “to add polish, increase stability, tweak AI behaviour, address some known gameplay issues and redress balance in a number of areas.”
They add that it’s a first balance pass for Total War: Warhammer, so expect “more focussed improvement, additional features and rebalancing” (especially for multiplayer) in a future update. This release will add beta DirectX 12 support (which you can read about here), as well as an in-game benchmarking tool for both DirectX 11 and DX12.
The ultra massive list of changes can be read here, and below. Highlights include toning down of AI Hero/Agents (at least on Normal difficulty and below), the auto-resolve function being less focused on murdering your highest value troops, decent buffs to certain spells, and (claimed) improvements to AI behaviour during sieges. Lowlights include a terrifying across-the-board buff to Marauder Horsemen. May god have mercy on us all.
Total War: Warhammer – Update 1
Heroes balance changes
AI-controlled Heroes now receive half the amount of XP that the player would following an action.
Reduced AI-controlled Hero success chance on Easy and Normal difficulties.
Rebalanced traits and followers that could affect Hero action success chance.
Hero actions that damage the entire target army cause significantly less damage.
Spell, ability and effect changes
The effectiveness of Direct Damage spells (eg Spirit Leech) is now modified according to context, bringing them more in line with other spell types. Their damage output is now more variable as a result.
In multiplayer, all players will now begin battle with the same (but randomly determined) starting Winds of Magic.
Tweaks to hit-point regeneration and resurrection effects are tweaked to be more effective and have longer durations.
The Invocation of Nehek will now replenish the maximum HP of entities revived by it.
The Frenzy ability will no longer target allies in range.
Improvements to vortex/building interactions.
Movement/charge speed abilities now have longer durations.
Mad Cap Mushrooms now has the correct miscast effect.
Update to lightning so it now damages buildings.
Solheim’s Bolt of Illumination (fired by Luminark of Hysh) is now stronger and better against moving targets.
Satchel charges should no longer explode in the air.
Updated the Chaos Lord abilities and rebalanced the initial recharge of their abilities.
Manual aim (ALT) of spawn abilities such as Raise Dead now previews proxies in the correct place on the ground.
Added a target arrow to show the range of spawn abilities such as Raise Dead.
Fixed an issue with inconsistent firing arcs for magic on walls during Siege Battles.
Fixed the target arc location/orientation for area-of-effect spells on the battlefield.
Friendly AI present on the battlefield will now no longer assume control of units that the player has spawned with abilities such as Raise Dead.
Units: first balance pass
Bretonnia
Grail Knights: +Hitpoints, + Charge Bonus, -Damage, +AP Damage
Louen Leoncoeur on Beaquis: +Melee Attack
Trebuchet: smaller hitbox vs projectiles
Men-At-Arms, Spearmen-At-Arms: –Armour
Chaos Warriors
Chariots: –cost
Chaos Spawn: smaller hitbox vs projectiles
Chosen (all): +Armour
Chosen with Halberd +Bonus vs Large
Dragon: +Armour, +Hitpoints, +Melee Attack
Dragon Ogres: +Melee Defence, +Damage, +Missile Resistance
Forsaken: –Armour, -Melee Attack, -Melee Defence, -Damage, +Speed, +Charge Bonus
Hellcannon: rebalanced projectile properties for greater effectiveness
Knights (all): +Hitpoints, +Melee Defence, +Charge Bonus
Knights with Lances: -Damage, +AP Damage
Marauder Horsemen (all): +Damage, +Reload Speed, +Accuracy
Sigvald now has the Strider ability
Sorcerer Lords: +Damage, +Leadership
Sorcerer Lord with Lore of Death: –Cost
Trolls (all): +Damage
Warhounds: +Speed
Dwarfs
Flame Cannon: +Damage, +Range, increased firing angle to allow firing from second row
Gyrocopter, Gyrobomber: +Mass, tweaks to chance of playing hit reaction animation, tweaks to projectiles that result in slight accuracy increase
Irondrakes with Trollhammer Torpedoes: +Damage
Miners with Blasting Charges: –Projectile Damage
Organ Gun: +Penetration (now penetrates Troll-sized enemies too)
Slayers: lower chance of getting knocked down by splash attacks
Empire
Empire Knights, Reiksguard: +Charge Bonus
Helblaster Volley Gun: +Penetration (now penetrates cavalry-sized enemies too)
Demigryph Knights: (all) +Cost, +Damage, -AP Damage, -Speed
Griffon: –Speed
Steam Tank: –Speed
Greenskins
Goblin Big Boss: +Damage, +Melee Attack, +Melee Defence, -Cost
Trolls: +Damage, smaller hitbox vs projectiles
Wolf Chariot: +Hitpoints, +Melee Attack, +Charge Bonus
Goblin bow units: –Damage
Forest Goblin Spider Riders (all): –Hitpoints, -AP Damage
Savage Orcs (all): –Leadership, -Melee Attack, -Charge Bonus
Vampire Counts
Banshee now has Terror
Black Coach: +Melee Defence, +Armour, +Attack Speed
Black Knights (all): +Charge Bonus
Cairn Wraiths, Hexwraiths, Banshee: rebalanced for higher Physical Resistance
Crypt Horrors: –Speed, -Damage, -Armour
Terrorgheist: –Speed
Battle AI
Improved the Siege AI’s unit selection when deciding to attack city gates so that missile-heavy AI armies can have a better chance at being successful.
Siege AI will now attempt to assault the gates even if they only have missile units.
Increased the width of the walls the Siege AI will attempt to defend.
Improved the AI’s positioning on walls when defending during siege battles.
When the Battle AI decides to switch from defence to attack, it will fully commit instead of sometimes trying to pull back and defend again.
Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented the attacking Siege AI’s flying units from engaging.
Fixed an issue that could cause the defending Battle AI to unnecessarily move a few meters forward at the start of battle.
Updated the Vampire Counts army templates for the AI to improve army quality.
Campaign AI
Increased war co-ordination attack priority in Campaign, to help make allied AI factions respond more readily to war targets/war co-ordination.
Diplomatic treacheries now have a bigger impact on the player’s reliability rating, and the AI remembers them for a longer period of time.
Campaign AI is now less likely to offer money and more likely to sign more alliances.
Campaign AI is now a bit more cautious with intercepting enemy armies.
AI is now less inclined to start chasing the Chaos player around the Campaign map.
Increased the chance of Chaos recruiting when they are in the position to do so, when controlled by the AI.
Changed late game (‘Age of Peace’) AI behaviour, to make AI factions more aggressive and unreliable. As a result they are more likely to return to the pre-Chaos status quo, breaking treaties and turning against one another. Also increased the Great Power penalty at this stage of the game.
Multiplayer and MP Campaign
Unit rebalancing across all races (see Unit Rebalancing By Race).
Added 5 new Multiplayer maps: Alpine Ridge, Crossroads, Heorot Ridge, Peak Pass and Blue Reach River.
Fixed an issue in Quick Battle mode where players click Start Battle and change factions very quickly, leading to mixed up units and factions.
When playing a co-operative Multiplayer Campaign, if a player has a Waaagh! Army, their co-operative ally can no longer target their Waaagh! and attack it.
Fixed a Multiplayer Campaign Progression Blocker which occurred if a Greenskins player had a WAAAGH! When the Chaos Invasion triggered, and made their End Turn button permanently greyed out.
The player list will now display correctly in the Chat window when opened in the front end.
Players with Team Merging unselected in Quick Battle mode will no longer be merged into teams.
A tool-tip which erroneously displayed “AI Player” when any player hovered the mouse over a human player in a LAN Multiplayer Battle Lobby has been corrected.
Added a tool-tip to the blue map marker (telestration) on the Tactical Map during Multiplayer Battles.
Fix for MPC issues where multiple “allied attacked” prompts would appear simultaneously, causing progression to be blocked for the player.
Fixed some cases where the player could move the camera in Multiplayer Campaign mode, when they weren’t supposed to be able to.
‘Campaign – general
Autoresolver now deals less damage to high quality units (e.g. Slayers) in standard battle situations and deals more to low quality units.
Subculture targeting missions are now always cancelled when the targeted subculture is destroyed.
Diplomatic attitudes will no longer change by opening and closing the diplomacy menu.
Displayed diplomatic attitude updated to more accurately reflect the AI’s attitude.
Changing diplomatic relations should now trend towards the target attitude much faster.
Fixed a bug during diplomacy involving the AI breaking military access with the player.
Fixed a bug during diplomacy offers where all options would remain greyed out, blocking the player’s progression.
Added a warning when the player tries to switch stance while the army has pending recruitments.
Fixed an issue that caused the units in the unit exchange panel to have the wrong size.
Fixed an issue that caused some mission objectives to wrongly display player’s faction.
Details of candidates will now be displayed when recruiting new agents or lords.
Removed the ‘Zoom to Location’ icon from followers that have been attained but are not attached to a character.
Dragging the scroll bar to the end of the victory screen will no longer return it to the start of the bar.
Fixed an issue that caused some locked actions in the Agent Info Panel to be displayed in the wrong order with the wrong tooltip.
Fixed an issue sometimes causing the missions and events radar panel to overlap in Campaign.
Fixed an issue that caused the units panel to not refresh when equipped ancillaries changed.
Improved legibility of event text.
When joining a war through diplomacy, the player’s Greenskin Waaagh! faction will now also join the war.
Fixed character scaling on the pre-battle screen in campaign when an army is attacked while sieging.
War co-ordination targets are now removed when a military ally is no longer at war with the target
Fixed a bug where after one Greenskin Tribe confederated with another which had a WAAAGH! Army, the WAAAGH! Army would stay loyal to the original tribe (which no longer existed).
When a lord is wounded, the banners they own are now removed from the units they are assigned to.
God-rays indicating the war target of an opposing army on the campaign map are now hidden when attacking that army and entering the pre-battle screen.
Skills that increase Hitpoints such as The Scarred Vetaran are now maintained after the Lord with the skills is injured in battle then re-recruited.
Tweaked the lighting on the advisor portholes.
Fixed an issue with glowing Marienburg flags.
Fixed an issue with flag ownership for the Greenskins.
Campaign difficulty text when “hard” or higher is now coloured red.
Reduced Great Power penalty for late game Campaign AI personalities (except on Very Hard and Legendary difficulties)
Improved the Specular and Gloss levels on the Campaign Terrain in the Badlands.
Building upgrades are now correctly cancelled after a settlement is sacked and the primary slot is downgraded.
Improved the lighting / climate transition when the player passes the camera over the Gianthome Mountains in the northeast of the Campaign map.
Fixed a missing lake under the shroud south of Helmgart/Montfort on the Campaign Map.
Increased the visual fidelity of the dragon bones and the props around the Greenskin settlements on the campaign map.
Mork is now considerably Morkier.
Fixed some stretched and misaligned textures on the Campaign map.
Improved the coastal shadows from cliffs on the Campaign map.
Fixed an untextured coastal edge on the Campaign map.
Fixed an issue where Chaos Chariots and Gorebeast Chariots were receiving too much upkeep reduction under certain circumstances and weren’t affected by certain technologies.
The Nuln unique building for artillery recruitment (Nuln Cannon Foundry/Nuln Artillery School/Special Forges) will now impart an experience bonus when artillery is recruited from the global pool.
Fixed some flickering around the edges of lava streams near the two large volcanoes in the southern part of the Campaign map, which appeared for some users.
Improved the shroud in the top edge of the Grand Campaign Map, to hide the crenellated edge of the Chaos Wastes area.
Made the Teleport button on Quest Battle Notifications clearer to the player.
Fixed an issue with the Jack of All Trades, Master of Some achievement not triggering correctly.
The Gatebreaker achievement will no longer be unlocked during the vampire prelude battle as the Varghulf attacks the gate.
Fixed the Grafs of The Empire achievement, which incorrectly unlocked when completing a Quest Battle with no heroes.
Updated the Skull Staff objectives when playing as Vampires, so the third objective is no longer already complete as a result of the second.
Bonus chapter objectives that require the player to construct a specific building will now also allow a higher level of that building to complete the objective.
Completing the first quest battles will no longer complete the bonus chapter objective to complete a quest chain.
Any item that grants attribute Enables Terror now also grants Enables Fear.
Character experience is no longer awarded for sacking a settlement.
Added tooltips to treaty icons above Heroes.
Colour coded Vigour state text on unit tooltips in battle.
AI-controlled Chaos Warriors race will no longer be able to offer or accept peace once war has been declared.
Fixed a rare case of seeing a Horde Infighting effect when using a Hero to target a horde army.
Vampiric Corruption payload that has negative effects on the player now has red text instead of green (except when the Vampire Counts faction is a human player).
Dwarfs are much less likely to get the Likes Greenskins trait, and the trait will never trigger on Dwarf faction leaders.
Fixed a rare case where a random magic item would be awarded when completing a quest battle that was underground.
A large number of followers used by human factions have had their effects tweaked, along with the chance of them dropping and the triggers that cause them to drop.
While playing as Chaos Warriors as either Kholek or Sigvald, the text for unlocking Archaon has been corrected.
Slayers now take 1 turn to recruit, rather than 2.
Fixed a script error in the Prelude triggered when the player skipped over FMV and cutscene very quickly via the [ESC] key.
Added a new random incident that may respawn the Savage Orc Skull-takerz or Top Knotz tribes if they are destroyed.
Norscans now correctly suffer attrition when standing in areas of high Vampiric corruption.
Fixed a case where the previous/next armies buttons on the recruit Lord/Hero panel would read “province” when playing as Chaos.
Reduced the number of factions the player needs to be at war with to complete the chapter objectives in the Vampires and Chaos campaigns.
Corrected some male traits (using male pronouns) applying to female characters.
Added in-line images to many tooltips that were missing them.
Clarified some text to say that some tier 1 and 2 buildings can only be constructed in a province capital and not in a minor settlement upgraded to tier 3.
Followers will no longer be lost after a certain number of turns.
Arcane items are now available to all subcultures except Dwarfs so shouldn’t be able to be stolen by them.
Negative or neutral innate traits are now less likely to appear when recruiting a new Lord or Hero.
Fixed a rare case where a grudge would be issued against the player’s own faction.
Fixed a rare case where Bjornling navies may spawn in inaccessible areas during the Chaos Invasion event.
At the point Heroes are spawned through random events or mission rewards, they will have full movement range.
Fixed a mismatch between the 3D and 2D portraits for some Norsca characters.
Fixed a rare case where one of Azhag the Slaughterer’s quests would ask the player to raid the player’s own territory.
The Stand or Die ability now replaces the Rally ability when unlocked via Chaos Lord skill trees.
Fixed a rare case where the Immortulz banner may be issued as a mission reward.
Fixed a progression blocker where the End Turn button became greyed out if the player was allied with one of the factions Chaos started at war with during the Chaos Invasion.
Event messages in which a faction has joined a war against you now instantly open.
Fixed a rare case where one of Heinrich Kemmler’s quests would ask the player to raid the player’s own territory.
Fixed the Defiler of Ancient Barrows technology not applying the upkeep reduction to Skeleton Infantry.
The Chaos Sorcerer Hero action ‘Damage Buildings’ now correctly damages buildings in the target settlement.
Random incidents that reduce the player’s treasury will no longer trigger if they would result in bankrupting the player.
Fixed a rare case where a mission would be issued to capture a Norsca-owned settlement.
Reduced the rank requirement of the grudge to rank up a Master Engineer from 15 to 10.
Rivers now blend into the sea better on Campaign maps.
Manfred von Carstein is now granted the Swarm of Flies ability by the Zombie Dragon mount.
Rebalanced some common leader abilities that are unlocked in Hero/Lord skill trees.
Fixed a dwarf statue prop on the campaign map, so it no longer pops in and out when the camera approaches/recedes.
Fixed a campaign pathfinding bug where it was possible to move multiple heroes simultaneously to the same location on the campaign map, and they’d get stuck in the same spot.
Increase in movement range is now more accurately depicted as increasing when enabling Forced March stance in Campaigns.
Fixed performance issue when selecting forces in Use Underway stance on the Campaign map.
Goblins are now more ticklish.
Greenskin factions can no longer be asked to break a military access agreement with their Waaagh! army.
Battles in the Chaos Wastes are now assigned a valid battle name.
Decline option for intercepting an ambush is now greyed out.
The Pre-battle options Spectate and Fight as AI are now greyed out when other player has decided to auto-resolve.
Disabled the [HOME] key during pre-battle, as it could move the camera out of underway pre-battle scenes.
Fixed attrition preview not showing on health bars of embedded agents.
Select next/previous character shortcuts (</>) now also include embedded agents while in character details so the player can cycle through all owned characters.
Fixed an issue where if an embedded agent was selected, selecting the army again on the campaign map wouldn’t reselect the general/army, which could lead to accidentally moving the agent out of army.
The faction screen/spell browser is now closed when playing fullscreen movie to fix movie playback issues.
The Diplomacy screen will no longer display incorrectly when there are no opposing factions surviving.
The Item in Transit icon on the Character Porthole will now update / refresh more regularly along with the Character Details panel.
Communiteam will now have immunity to all Trolls
Fix for autosave occurring between a chapter objective being completed and new chapter objective being issued on Legendary Campaign. This fix will only affect new save games.
Damaged Buildings advisor message will no longer trigger during the AI turn cycle.
Fixed some white squares appearing on the textures of the Dwarf starting area on
the Campaign map.
Fixed some stretched and misaligned textures on the Campaign map.
Battle – general
Fixed a bug where garrison reinforcements for the defender were not being deployed at the beginning of a siege battle.
Improved audio while placing the camera over or into holes in the battlefield (e.g. environment and wind audio will not cut out).
Fixed a bug where AI reinforcement armies deployed at the beginning of a battle were controllable by the player.
Orc Boar Boy Big ‘Uns will no longer raise their arms as if they have a shield when taking projectile fire.
Fixed an issue with the Vampire Bat Cage projectiles from Siege Towers.
Fixed some gaps/holes in battle outfields.
Improved the trees in Bloodpine Woods map on low graphics settings.
The Savage Orc Boar Boy Big ‘Uns weapon will no longer dethatch from their left hand while they are attacking with their right.
Improved combat/melee animation for Outriders.
Improved animation on Black Orc attacks.
Fixed an issue where the wrong number of crewmen were being passed from the battle to the campaign, causing erroneously huge loot amounts.
Fixed an issue where reinforcements were not coming into battle when there is more than one reinforcing Waaagh! Army.
Fixed an issue where some units retreating from Battle would only have 1 HP upon returning to Campaign.
Adjusted the position that reinforcements enter in underway battles
Added audio to the Bretonnian Siege Towers with spinning spiked rollers.
Fixed some porthole images for Forsaken, Dragon Ogres and Shaggoths, which appeared too red.
Shadows are now more accurately rendered when moving the camera quickly in snow battles and zooming with the [N] key.
Fixed a bug where the rotation of reinforcement armies was not correct when playing a replay, as the approach angle of the primary army was not being saved.
Fixed the terrain in battles near Misty Mountains and Karak Kadrin, so units do not stand under the ground.
Lords will no longer use incorrect vocalisations when their army is destroyed.
Fixed a bug during battles where “Withdraw” voiceover played from the unit that was currently selected, even if they were not the unit that was withdrawing.
Units may now taunt and cheer during Quest Battle speeches.
Bretonnian unit vocalisation will now be more accurate regarding the weapons the units are using.
Single creatures may now shriek when swooping in to attack enemy land units.
Fixed battle results screen to show kills for large armies.
Corrected the Vampire character portrait ahead of the Chaos Tomb Blade quest battle.
When a Steam Tank is destroyed in battle, the turret no longer remains.
Improved how decals smear over props on the battlefield.
Reduced the visible popping between the Chaos Encampment tower LoDs.
Improved/reduced how often individual units taunt while marching, as it sounded too frequent, especially when marching a large army towards an objective.
Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented AI-controlled missile units from firing when they should.
AI-controlled artillery crews will no longer stand idle if they had abandoned their equipment and their equipment is out of ammunition.
Fixed an issue where unit card status icons would disappear on some cards when fighting with large armies.
Fixed a Battle UI issue, where dragging a card from a locked group to an unlocked group didn’t correctly remove unit from the battle group. So when the locked group’s formation is dragged out or moved on the battlefield, the unit that was moved into the unlocked group is also moved with the locked group that it was previously in.
You’ve come so far. Don’t give up now!
Fixed incorrect calculation of ‘other income’ on finance details panel.
Reinforcements with Unbreakable attribute will no longer enter a battle with 0 morale.
Crossroads map has now been made flat.
Tweaked deployment zones and army setups for Kholek’s Starcrusher Quest Battle.
At the start of the Starcrusher Quest Battle, the Greenskins will no longer flee.
Improved the precision of fort perimeters in battle, so the game can more accurately judge if flying creatures are within the fort.
Tweaked the AI army to Increase the difficulty of the Armour of Morkar Quest Battle.
Fixed some gatehouse wall sections to prevent units getting stuck between two sections of destroyed walls.
Gork is now appreciably Gorkier.
Fixed an issue with reinforcements during the Axe of Dargo Quest battle.
Fixed a bug where the attacker and defender were deployed in the wrong positions in Black Crag sally-out battles.
Fixed a bug with hard collision breaking the navigation.
Fixed some dark areas in the Thundering Falls Quest Battle map which didn’t interact well with the Screen Space Reflections graphics option.
Fixed a bug where the Greenskin Gatehouse wasn’t always opened during the prelude battle, at the point the player gains control of all units.
Fixed an issue during the Greenskins prelude battle where the Gatehouse would sometimes not be destroyed before the player gained control of units.
Long shadows on battlefields are now displayed better.
Improved Thorgrim’s celebration animation on the Campaign map after winning a battle
Improved Thorgrim’s death animation on the Campaign map.
Bretonnian Peasant Bowmen swords will no longer float next to their hands when performing a stab animation.
Prevented the Chaos Sorcerer’s cape from clipping through their horse on the Campaign map.
Improved Greatswords overhead attach animations.
Technical
Fixed a number of rare crashes and memory leaks during campaign and battle.
Improved AMD Eyefinity support
Numerous minor typo and text-display issues found and fixed
Loading the debug camera by changing the default_battle_camera_type and default_campaign_camera_type to 2 in the preference.script has been disabled, as it was causing crashes.
Fixed an issue with Korean font rendering, which made characters shift around and flicker.
Fix for transparent trees with MSAA turned on.
The R7 M260 card will now display the correct Video Memory in the Advanced Graphics options.
MSAA will no longer expose flat planes around the edges of battlefield vegetation.
Fixed some buildings not opening in the Building Browser and Game Guide.
Fixed an issue that could cause Unit Cards to become blurry when mouseing over them in the Building Browser.
Fixed an issue where couldn’t mouse over unit info panel on building browser card if info panel was on the right of the card.
Fixed an issue where players could open chat with the shortcut key while the button is inaccessible (which caused a renderings issue when opening the chat while in spell browser was already open).
On the Character Details panel UI lock-up bug fixed.
Fixed a bug where tool-tips on the Game Guide were not being updated after moving the mouse off the link that made the tool-tip appear.
Fixed the link to the Game Guide from the Recruit Lord panel in Campaign modes.
Game Guide now scales better when the user changes the games resolution in windowed mode.
Fixed right-clicks in the Game Guide not taking the player to correct page in non-English languages.
Corrected some Empire building technology unlocks in the Game Guide.
Global recruitment options will now highlight when the cursor is hovered over help page term.
Fixed a bug with hard collision breaking the navigation.
Fixed some dark areas in the Thundering Falls Quest Battle map which didn’t interact well with the Screen Space Reflections graphics option.
Known DX12 issues
Crash on startup on AMD R7 200 series GPUs.
Shadow flickering on some maps in very large army scenarios on R9 Fury and 300 series cards
The game will stop updating on-screen when switching between Fullscreen-Windowed mode on HD7800
When Multi-Sample Anti-aliasing (MSAA) is enabled on some AMD R9 300 series cards, some models may exhibit a wireframe like appearance when close to the camera
Nvidia GTX 900 series GPUs may experience occasional shadow flickering with Multi-Sample Aliasing enabled
Published: Jun 29, 2016 09:00 pm