Build 26350339

Visual:

- Bust fixes for French marines (hat metal incorrect texture color)

- Bust fixes for Swedish Gula Hussars (hat metal incorrect texture color)

- High clouds removed as a game object. They decreased framerate and were barely noticeable unless you zoomed all the way out. And if you did that, they'd flicker on your screen

- Adjusted sisu spirit text to specify the negative effects from weather are only being negated on the campaign map itself

- Adjusted the Germantide achievement to reference the “Royal Prussian Army” not the “Cantonist Levies” any longer.

- Fog setting in graphics options renamed to “Morning Mist” since it has no impact on the visuals for the foggy weather.

- Adjusted the maximum zoom level when viewing unit trees to be more consistent

- Fixed typo on Karabela Sabers showing up as basic even though they’re good quality

Quality of Life:

- Made an “Add All” button at shops for quick selling

- Added a funds dropdown to mess around with custom compositions easier

Sound:

- Artillery impact sounds updated

- Shatter sound on enemy units updated to be more distinct

- Musket sounds were originally being reduced in pitch between -0.8 to 0.0 which means anytime a gunshot sound plays it was making it lower pitch by a random amount. This has been changed to be -0.2 to 0.6, so now the pitch can still come out slightly lower, but there’s a much greater chance for the sound to come out at a higher pitch which should make the muskets sound a little less muffled/bassy.

- Howitzer gun sound slightly reduced in volume

- Cannon ball impact sounds increased in volume

Bugfixes

- Items can no longer be free to purchase, even if you stack modifiers. The minimum price is now at least 5 thalers.

- Light infantry can no longer be exploited to use volley fire by selecting a group and toggling between free fire/volley fire

- Fixed a bug where sometimes the enemy HQ’s bust would appear invisible

- Fixed a bug where the bayonet wasn’t reducing reload speed properly in battle

- Fixed a bug where sometimes when you removed certain skills they were staying applied to that officer despite having been removed

- Fixed a bug where the gold/silver highlights for items wasn’t appearing in battle

AI Changes

- AI is more willing to target your light infantry with gunfire

- AI is less willing to fire its artillery into melees, which should make it less frustrating when you charge in

- AI infantry is more willing to charge your artillery if its exposed

- AI improvements to being defensive, they should less exposed while reorganizing their lines if you assault their position

- Carolean personality now regains its morale at -30% instead of -25% speed. It also takes slightly longer before it mass-commits to the charges.

Gameplay

UNITS

Now that the update is live, we noticed that large units were consistently outperforming many of the smaller units. We think this has mainly happened because a lot of unit trees got “converged” alternatives and so there has been a big inflation in the amount of hefty units. The theme of these balance changes is to slightly decrease the staying power of the largest units in the game and to slightly buff the performance of the smallest units.

PRUSSIA

- All Prussian and Freikorps infantry sprint speed reduced by -5, as they were as fast or in some cases faster than highlanders. I kept the highest-tier Prussian infantry a little faster though, namely the Freikorps veteran musketeers & grenadiers.

- Prussian cuirassiers gain +5 stamina, as it was so low that on charges they’d immediately become tired

AUSTRIA

- Modense troops gain +5 melee and the grenadiers gain +5 charge: since their units are so small they would perform worse against larger units

- Austrian reformed fusiliers gain +5 charge: compared to other units of the same size they are generally weaker

- Hungarian reformed fusiliers gain +5 charge: their charge wasn’t too high even though the Hungarian branch is meant to specialize in this. It also meant you were better off taking Hungarian grenadiers always.

- Hungarian infantry gain +5 reload: Using Hungarians in shootouts is slightly more viable now before committing to a charge.

- Hungarian infantry lose -5 melee: Hungarian units can be quite large, and as a nationality they seemed generally better than other melee-oriented picks when playing as Austria.

RUSSIA

- Baseline Russian infantry morale reduced by 5 (except for the Serf recruits): Russian units are particularly large, so they naturally take less morale damage from casualties, as each loss represents a smaller percentage of their total strength. For example, losing 100 men from a 2,000-man regiment means 5% casualties, compared to 10% for a 1,000-man regiment.

- Life Guards & Grenadier Guards morale reduced by a total of 10 instead of 5: their main strength is how big they are. The Russian Grenadier Guards’ reload reduced by -5

- Russian Life Guards & Grenadier guards no longer gain +5 speed: they go up to 2,000 manpower and their speed was the same as much smaller units like 1,000-man British grenadiers which seemed wrong.

- Russian settled hussars’ melee increased by +5: they overlapped with the Hetmanate cossacks too much.

- Slobodian cossacks’ accuracy increased by +5: they are otherwise a less interesting pick compared to other cossacks.

- Observation grenadiers gain +5 melee and +5 reload to make them a more viable pick over just regular Russian grenadiers.

- Pandur grenadiers gain +5 morale due to their small size, and +5 movement speed

- Perobrazhenskiy Life Guards’ charge reduced by -5 due to their massive size and otherwise very good shooting/morale stats.

- Russian 1st Grenadiers gain +5 charge due to their smaller size relative to other renowned Russian units.

- Russian cuirassiers gain +5 stamina, as it was so low that on charges they’d immediately become tired

BRITAIN

- Brunswicker troops gain +5 morale because of their small size, except for the converged grenadiers and regular grenadiers.

- Highland grenadiers & veteran grenadiers gain +5 morale to be on par with British grenadiers due to their small size.

- Highland units gain +5 charge across the board to hyper-specialize them in charging, as their other stats aren’t particularly exceptional and they are a small unit.

- Campbell’s Highlanders’ stamina increased by +5.

FRANCE

- All Irish units gain +5 melee, their small size meant they were not worth picking over larger French units.

- French mainline units lose -5 morale (except for royal recruits who remain the same), their size means they take less morale damage overall, similar to my explanation for why the Russians lost morale.

- French mainline units lose -5 speed because of their size, it also makes the irish/swiss/german units a better pick for mobility.

- French veteran fusiliers & guards lose -5 melee and reload due to large size.

- Swedish Fusilier renowned unit run speed reduced by -5 due to size.

- French marines reworked to be a smaller unit that specializes in speed/stamina/melee instead of being a larger unit focused on defensive melee stats and reload.

- French Royal Scots go up to 1400 men instead of 1200.

HRE

- HRE converged Kreis grenadiers and musketeers no longer gain +5 morale and +5 stamina at their final tier. They are a massive unit similar to the French/Russians and were overperforming.

- HRE Kreis grenadiers’ charge -5, they already carry a ton of weight into their charges due to their size.

- Saxon infantry lose -5 stamina across the board except for the foot guards and grenadier guards. Their units have practically no weaknesses and they are at a decent size, so this gives them a slight malus.

- Saxon infantry speed lose -5 across the board. There is now a greater reason that you may want to pick up Palatine/Bavarian/Wurttemberg troops who are a bit more agile.

- Bavarian life guards lose -5 melee. Bavarians should be specializing more in shooting and there are plenty of melee alternatives.

- Swiss Lifeguards gain +5 reload. They are a very tiny unit and needed a little more combat power.

SWEDEN

- Finnish grenadiers & veteran grenadiers gain +5 morale. They are a small unit and needed more staying power.

POLISH-LITHUANIAN

- All Lithuanian infantry gain +5 charge, they are smaller than the Polish units and needed to compensate for the lack of size.

- Lithuanian grenadiers gain +5 morale. Same rationale as above.

- Veteran Magnate musketeers gain +5 accuracy. Their small size meant they were underperforming in shootouts against inferior units.

- Free Company Fusiliers gain +10 morale. Seemed like a weak light infantry unit.

GLOBAL

- Brace speed change reverted. I had increased the speed at which units braced while also increasing the effectiveness at bracing. I think brace effectiveness was good, but units can brace too quickly now and repel charges at ease.

- Open order skirmishers now deal +20% more damage instead of +15% while firing in open order, making them a slightly deadlier threat if you don’t deal with them quick enough

- Reduced forts needed to destroy in Act 3’s mission from 4 to 3 since there’s not much time

- Battalion artillery no longer loses accuracy when it upgrades into field artillery. The upgrade of getting two extra guns for your battery is a big enough buff.

ARTILLERY

- Limber chest change reverted, I had reduced the limber chest ammo reduction worse by 5% in the anniversary update but I think this was the wrong choice. They’ve been returned to the regular ammo reduction values.

- Artillery should be dealing much higher morale damage (about twice as much). This also applies to things like canister shot.

- Canister shot has less falloff damage now so it should be a little more consistent

- Artillery range increased slightly, most noticeably on the lower-tier guns. Brummer range down by -5, geschwindstuck range reduced by -10, shuvalov range increased by +10

- The 1-pounder training cannon now takes 10 seconds longer to reload

- The cost of all iron-tier guns has gone down in price by about -40%

- The cost of buying battalion-artillery units has gone down by about -25% for all nations