Shogun 2 Rise of Samurai patch notes

Detailed notes for the giant patch accompanying imminent Total War: Shogun 2 mini-expansion Rise of the Samurai have been released.

The list is as long as a really long worm, which we've coaxed out with Fairy Liquid and stapled, in full, below.

Rise of the Samurai will release tomorrow, 27th September. From Steam, Rise of the Samurai costs £5.99.

Total War: Shogun 2, released in March 2011, "is a corker".

"The Creative Assembly designers are masters at transporting strategicians to a different place and time," declared Tim Stone in Eurogamer's Total War: Shogun 2 review. "And here they are at their beguiling best."

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

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

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!

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