Mortal Empires Patch Notes

MORTAL EMPIRES UPDATE

The first update for Total War: WARHAMMER II hits via Steam auto-update on 26/10/2017 and contains a host of changes, tweaks, improvements and fixes (please see below for details). Mortal Empires, the new grand-scale campaign encompassing the landmasses of the Old World and the New World, will become available as the update goes live. Download it for free here!

Mortal Empires requires ownership of both Total War: WARHAMMER and Total War: WARHAMMER II to play. Once downloaded, Mortal Empires will appear as a new playable campaign in the WARHAMMER II campaigns menu, alongside the Eye of the Vortex campaign.

Including all the core Races and Legendary Lords from both games, Mortal Empires also allows you to begin a campaign as any DLC or Free-LC Legendary Lord from the first game. Going forward, it will also encompass any DLC/FLC Legendary Lords that are subsequently released for WARHAMMER II.

The one exception is the Norsca Race Pack (Wulfrik the Wanderer and Throgg the Troll King). These have yet to be implemented and will become playable in a future update. The same update will also implement the 30^th Anniversary Regiments of Renown, Old World Legendary Lords skill adjustments, and other changes and additions which first appeared in the Foundation Update for Total War: WARHAMMER 1.

INSTALL SIZES AND MORE

Due to the unique way Steam patches games – by backing up your existing installation, applying the freshly-downloaded data to the duplicate, then deleting the old installation, if you ever wondered – you may need to free up some hard drive space to install Mortal Empires. Here’s what you can expect:

If you’ve limited space on your primary hard drive (for example, if you’re using an SSD with limited space as your primary drive, with a secondary mechanical drive for mass storage), a useful workaround we’ve found is to setup a secondary Steam Library folder on your storage drive. Provided you have enough space on your primary drive for the final installation (see ‘post-patch installation footprint’ above), Steam will automagically utilise any other registered Steam folders on other drives as a download location for the install process.

To set up a secondary Library folder in Steam, Click Steam->Settings->Downloads and click the Steam Library Folders button. From here you can create extra Library folders on any of your drives.

BLOOD & GORE

This update also introduces the Blood for the Blood God Effects Pack to Total War: WARHAMMER II. This is free for players who bought the pack for Warhammer 1. Players who own WARHAMMER II but not the first game, and therefore not the first Blood for the Blood God Pack, will need to purchase the pack to access its grisly effects.

Blood and gore effects can be toggled on and off in the advanced graphics options menu. Hail Hydra!

UPDATE NOTES (highlights)

This update comes with a number of tweaks, improvements, changes and fixes to many areas of the game, along with our first major balance-pass for the WARHAMMER II core races. We’ve also made some tweaks to the Free For All MP mode, added a host of new FFA maps, and introduced new buildings and dilemmas for the different Races.

Read on for the full details, but first off, here are some headline fixes we feel may be relevant to players’ interests:

• FIXED cases of units dropping attack orders (and therefore not pursuing fleeing enemies)
• FIXED units in guard mode stopping attacking if current melee enemy Rampages
• CHANGED Morathi and Malekith’s skills to spread the owning faction’s corruption, instead of starting faction’s corruption. This means that if Mortahi is confederated to Malekith’s faction, she will not continue to spread Chaos corruption
• FIXED multiple region borders that were preventing factions from being able to trade with one another, especially if their capital was on an island
• FIXED Screaming Bell being incorrectly marked as a small unit. It is now correctly considered a large unit
• CHANGED the difficulty of the final battle when initiated by the AI (by completing their fifth ritual). The battle will now feature an additional army led by the race’s other Legendary Lord
• CHANGED Black Arks from being part of the army upkeep penalty. Black Arks now do not factor in to the Supply Lines modifier
• FIXED Blessed Units not receiving the effects of certain Technologies, Skills or Astromancy stance

UPDATE NOTES (in full)

GENERAL

• RELEASED Mortal Empires
• RELEASED Blood for the Blood God for WARHAMMER II
• FIXED multiple crashes
• FIXED multiple MPC desyncs
• FIXED multiple localisation issues in multiple languages

CAMPAIGN GAMEPLAY

• ADDED Siege defence tower projectile upgrades for WH2 factions to defence buildings
• ADDED additional Dilemmas that will trigger when your Dark Elf or Skaven Lords are very high on loyalty. Also, added over a dozen magic items that are specific rewards for Dark Elf and Skaven high-loyalty dilemmas
• ADDED functionality for tutorial notifications to respond to Esc key presses to dismiss/acknowledge them
• ADDED multiple new buildings:
  • Empire
    • Castle Reikguard (Altdorf)
    • Imperial Palace (Altdorf)
    • Imperial Academy
    • Roads and Toll Gates
  • Greenskins
    • Big Fort (Black Crag)
    • Dork’s Rock (Black Crag)
    • Chaos Troll Lair (Erengrad)
    • Raiding Caches
  • Vampire Counts
    • Major reshuffle of recruitment buildings
    • Terrorgheists and Wraith units have separate recruitment buildings
    • Awakened Battlefield
    • Blood Keep (Nuln)
    • Fortress of Merovech (Mousillon)
    • Drakenhof Court (Drakenhof)
  • Dwarfs
    • Karaz-a-Karak Airport (Karaz-a-Karak)
    • Bugman’s Brewery (Karag Dromar)
    • Grand Underway Junction (Karak Eight Peaks)
  • Wood Elves
    • Elven Court
    • Elven Healer
    • Ability to fully occupy Lothern
    • Ability to construct a variant of the Everqueen’s Court in Gaean Vale
    • Office-related buildings are now restricted to a specific Athel Loren settlement
  • Most races
    • Buildings to exploit the new resources
    • Merged resource-based unit upgrade effects into resource exploitation buildings

• CHANGED Morathi and Malekith’s skills to spread the owning faction’s corruption, instead of starting faction’s corruption. This means that if Morathi is confederated to Malekiths faction, she will not continue to spread Chaos corruption
• FIXED multiple region borders that were preventing factions from being able to trade with one another, especially if their capital was on an island
• CHANGED the difficulty of the final battle when initiated by the AI (by them completing their fifth ritual). The battle will now feature an additional army led by the race’s other Legendary Lord
• CHANGED Black Arks from being part of the army upkeep penalty. Black Arks now do not factor in to the Supply Lines modifier
• FIXED Blessed Units not receiving the effects of certain Technologies, Skills or Astromancy stance
• IMPROVED – breaking treaties will now have a stronger immediate effect on affected relationships
• IMPROVED campaign AI intervention army decision-making for which sites to siege. Now more likely choose the non-primary Ritual locations if closer to them
• IMPROVED campaign AI logic for building up existing forces instead of creating new ones
• IMPROVED campaign AI occupation decisions for main targets when temporarily distracted by other objectives
• IMPROVED ambush help page information
• IMPROVED behaviour of advice when a dilemma is triggered
• IMPROVED calculated strength of Lords versus lower quality infantry. They were too strong before
• CHANGED “Piracy” event to not trigger if player owns Sartosa region
• CHANGED diplomacy to allow peace to be made between races in the Vortex ritual race after the campaign has been won
• CHANGED max number of traits a character can hold to 30 from 20
• FIXED a bug where entering a battle with heavily damaged units often resulted these units getting wiped out after autoresolving the battle even if they didn’t suffer any losses during the battle
• FIXED a case where Rebel armies would assault a settlement repeatedly rather than making the decision to raze it
• FIXED a soft lock which would occur when the player reached 10 turns left of the final ritual at the same time as another faction triggers the final battle
• FIXED agent success chance modifiers sometimes being applied to own heroes as well as enemy
• FIXED an issue in the diplomacy AI where the player’s treachery rating wasn’t considered correctly and this made some parts of diplomacy exploitable
• FIXED an issue with the AI proposing peace right after entering a war with the player
• FIXED cases where embedded Heroes would be selected at the end of the player’s turn and then immediately unselected
• FIXED cases where followers would disappear after unequipping them from a character
• FIXED cases where unique items could be awarded via random events (e.g. Encounters at Sea)
• FIXED Cave In Achievement not unlocking when player completed requirement in game
• FIXED Legacy of the Great Necromancer Achievement not unlocking when player completed requirement in game
• FIXED Encounters at Sea sometimes spawning in unreachable locations
• FIXED Lords recruited from Black Arks after achieving a Vortex Campaign victory not gaining any additional levels that should be granted
• FIXED Mazdamundi AI skill selection to prefer his unique skills more
• FIXED missing effects on some ancillaries/followers
• FIXED missions being issued while the issuing character was not available
• FIXED pre-battle camera scene not working correctly when the player was reinforcing an AI ally with their Garrison force
• FIXED public order and tax exemption on fortress gate regions resetting when the region changes owner
• FIXED Skaven tech to increase new Lords Loyalty not affecting Lords already in the selection pool
• FIXED some cases where the AI would repeatedly ask for almost the same deal
• FIXED targeting intervention forces for missions requesting the player to make an alliance
• FIXED units garrisoned in a settlement that is affected by Plague not receiving the Plague attrition

BATTLE GAMEPLAY  

• FIXED cases of units dropping attack orders (and therefore not pursuing fleeing enemies)
• FIXED units in guard mode stopping attacking if current melee enemy Rampages
• FIXED Screaming Bell being incorrectly marked as a small unit. It is now correctly considered a large unit
• ADDED 7 new Free-for-All maps
• IMPROVED Dragon breath targeting versus dispersed multiple entity units
• IMPROVED battle AI usage of spells in many cases
• IMPROVED flying unit ability to chase down routing units
• IMPROVED the playable area and deployment zone sizes on Troll Country FFA
• CHANGED Army losses morale penalty to not trigger in FFA battles. This change keeps players involved in the match for longer.
• CHANGED Faction banner colour for enemy in Dwarf Gouger quest battle to improve readability
• CHANGED Liber Bubonicus quest battle time limit. Added 3 minutes.
• CHANGED unit spawning (e.g. Verminitide) behaviour. Stops cases where the spawned unit would swarm single entities and gain excessive attack frequency
• FIXED a case of attacking Siege AI not properly attacking when there is no siege equipment
• FIXED a corner wall piece in a Dark Elf city where siege towers would fail to dock
• FIXED a scripting issue which would cause the AI enemy army in the Rod of Corruption quest battle to not correctly respond to artillery fire
• FIXED a staircase in Lothern Siege battle map which would cause chariots to spontaneously combust
• FIXED an exploit where you could cast some spells repeatedly for free if giving a move order during spell wind up. YUKANNADUZAT!
• FIXED battle difficulty not applying correctly when chosen on campaign select screen
• FIXED being able to bypass some Army Ability restrictions by casting on the Unit Cards
• FIXED Bombardment spells not being counted correctly towards Free-for-All player scores
• FIXED Bombardment spells sometimes not exploding on collision with certain terrain
• FIXED defending siege AI reinforcements sometimes not being handled correctly by AI
• FIXED enemy units sometimes rallying in intro battle when they shouldn’t
• FIXED CA Cinematics Team’s obsession with slaying High Elves. May require further testing…
• FIXED magic missile spells from bound items casting exploit if owner was a non-wizard Lord
• FIXED Siege tower fire rates being too fast
• FIXED some bound Vortex spells being able to be casted on walls when they should be restricted from doing so
• FIXED some cases where defender reinforcements would not arrive in siege and minor settlement battles
• FIXED some missing collision on obstacles in a few battle maps
• FIXED rebirth effects not triggering properly if unit was routing

UI

• FIXED hidden Skaven armies being visible by toggling on the Character names UI option
• CHANGED UI for swapping between lores if your caster had multiple. This is to avoid overlap with army abilities.
• ADDED spacing to Legendary Lord select images to denote races differentiation better
• CHANGED Enemy Army colour in MP battles to be red rather than pink
• CHANGED predicted public order overlay to work off only 3 colours which shows if public order is going up, down or remaining neutral
• FIXED “Enemy siege lifted” event in event list missing icon
• FIXED 3D banners sometimes being visible for garrisoned armies when in zoomed out strategic view
• FIXED a case where MPC players had access to interventions when it was not their turn
• FIXED a UI issue where only the Commandment button would be visible after closing the Rites panel if the Settlement panel was previously selected
• FIXED adding skill points in some cases resetting the scroll back to the left
• FIXED assembly kit downloaded map not being auto-selected in MP lobby
• FIXED ‘can trade’ icon in Known Factions list displaying incorrectly if you could trade but currently were not with a faction
• FIXED dilemmas sometimes appearing again after the player had already responded
• FIXED double clicking a ruin in strategic view revealing Skaven presence by opening the faction diplomacy screen
• FIXED error message that would show when trying to join a Multiplayer Campaign lobby for a save game you did not previously take part in
• FIXED Event message not being generated when losing a Lord or Army during end turn
• FIXED exiting out of diplomacy after offer an is rejected putting camera back in overview instead of where it was previously
• FIXED incorrect reason given for not being able to perform rites when the player’s capital was not available
• FIXED missing image in the Spells Browser for Skink Priest Avatar
• FIXED Murderous Prowess UI not flashing for duration of ability active state
• FIXED pressing the Home key during the post-battle camera scene allowing the camera to navigate away
• FIXED Quick-save UI button being disabled in the pre-battle screen when the player is reinforcing an allied AI army attacking an enemy settlement
• FIXED resource UI bar appearing during end turn after retreating from a battle
• FIXED Settlement pre-battle options refresh for attacking player if another player is reinforcing them and selects a pre-battle option first
• FIXED Softlock if opened rites panel whilst on the call-to-arms screen
• FIXED the displayed upkeep value for units sometimes displaying incorrectly once recruited
• FIXED Unit banners for flying units sometimes being missing when entering the tactical map mode in underground battles

VISUAL/GRAPHICS

• ADDED the ability to disable post-process sharpen in Advanced graphics options
• FIXED video playback having issues with High refresh rate monitors which would make the game unplayable when running at very high refresh rates (144+ Hz)
• ADDED default graphics quality preset detection for AMD VEGA GPUs
• CHANGED level of post-process sharpen effect to be weaker
• CHANGED WH1 race ship models to all use larger variants like WH2 races
• FIXED visual glitch that would occur with water if resolution scale was set below 100%
• FIXED visual noise glitch in SSAO
• FIXED cases of Lords in pre-battle scenes being too large and colliding with each other
• FIXED multiple minor animation glitches
• FIXED Spearmen unit in Tor Elithis Rogue army T-Posing
• FIXED White Lions of Chrace models having black spots on fur when camera was further away from them

AUDIO

• ADDED some new UI Sound Effects
• FIXED Audio being muted during end turn sequence camera pans
• FIXED Campaign music sometimes not blending between tracks correctly
• FIXED Music slider not affecting campaign music
• FIXED occurrences of campaign map audio not updating correctly when corruption took hold of a region

BATTLE BALANCING

General Balancing changes

• Rampage tweaks (kicks in 5% of HP lost later, reduced duration by 10s, tweaked pause between repeated rampages)
• Tweaks to rear attack melee defence modifier
• Reduced MP cost of melee lords on foot and horses by -50

Skaven

• Warpfire Throwers -50 cost, +5% reload speed
• Night Runners (Slings) +1 dmg
• Night Runners:  reduction in accuracy
• Night Runners (all) -5 hp, -5% physical resistance, -4 melee defence
• Gutter Runner Slingers +1 dmg
• Gutter Runners Slingers (Poison) +1 dmg
• Gutter Runners:  reduced projectile accuracy
• Gutter Runners (Poison): reduced projectile accuracy
• Gutter Runners (all) -5% physical resistance, -3 hp, -4 melee defence
• Death Globe Bombardier +2 dmg, +4 AP dmg, +1 explosion dmg, +2 explosion AP dmg
• Hellpit Abomination +5 BvsL, +3 MA, tweaks to attack animation preference
• Warp Lightning Cannon – accuracy (minor tweak)
• Doomwheel -100 HP
• Plague Priest on Plague Furnace: +100 mp cost
• Skavenslaves: more salt added to diet; now 25% more delicious

Lizardmen

• Terradon with Fireleech Bolas +10 range, projectile tweaks
• Horned Ones -100 cost, -5 armour, +14 HP
• Kroq-Gar – Horned One: +5% HP
• Slann Mage Priests and Mazdamundi on Palanquin +25% missile resistance

High Elves

• Swordmasters -2 MD
• Phoenix Guard -4 MA, -1 Speed, tweaks that will slightly reduce damage output
• Silver Helms (all) +2 CB, +2 dmg
• Tiranoc Chariot -2 missile dmg, +2 missile ap dmg
• Dragon Princes -2 HP
• Sun Dragon +4 MD, more breath attack damage
• Moon Dragon +2 MD, slightly more breath attack damage
• Black Dragon +2 MD
• Lothern Sea Guards (all) +2 MA
• Flamespyre Phoenix +2 MA, +3 leadership, +4 CB
• Frostheart Phoenix +2 CB
• Great Eagle +5 ground speed
• Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower -25 hp on artillery piece
• Tyrion: +45% flame resistance
• Tyrion – Malhandrir: increased mass to match heavier hero warhorses
• Tyrion: +10 weapon strength, percentage of ap damage increased to 45%.
• Tyrion: Added Foe Seeker ability for multiplayer

Dark Elves

• Reaper Bolt Thrower -25 hp on artillery piece
• Dark Riders Xbow +50 cost
• Black Ark Corsairs Handbow -2 ammo, projectile tweaks (amounts to a minor nerf)
• Black Ark Corsairs (all) -1 HP
• Cold One Knights -0.1 attack interval
• Executioners -2 MD, -10 armour
• Black Guard -10 armour, tweaks that will slightly reduce dmg output
• War Hydra +5 CB
• Death Hag – Blood Cauldron: +100 MP cost

Special Abilities and Spells:

• Improved ability tooltips to contain more information about damage type
• Adjusted medium breath template damage by -10% (Wind Blast, Pestilent Breath, Sunfang)
• Added recharge in melee and removed max uses for Sunfang
• Comet of Casandora and Black Ark Cauldron explosions now reach their max radius (=slightly more damage)
• Adjusted Warp Lightning explosion damage by -23%. Reduced Warp Lightning cost to 5
• Adjusted Wake of Fire explosion damage by -33%
• Fate of Bjuna power cost increased by 1
• Crack’s Call power cost reduced by 1
• Cracks’s Call Upgraded power cost reduced by 1
• Apotheosis can now target self
• Liber Bubonicus limited to max 2 uses
• Fiery Convocation: reduced power cost by 1
• Death Frenzy & Upgraded: Removed charge bonus stat effect. Increased duration to 21. Reduced power costs by -1 and -2 respectively
• Flame Storm & Flame Storm Upgraded: Increased vortex movement speed to 4. Reduced power cost of regular by -1
• Snare Net: Removed additional charge speed reduction, reduced speed reduction to -18