REX / M2EX - First Public Release

Both Rome: Total War and Medieval II: Total War have been ported to x64 and received a major engine overhaul. The RTW vanilla executable includes BI features such as hordes, night battles, shield wall, schiltrom, and more, available for mods out of the box.

Changes are tagged (RTW), (M2TW), or (RTW/M2TW) where they apply to both games.

Important: Saves made with REX/M2EX can't be loaded in vanilla anymore. You can however load your vanilla saves in REX/M2EX and continue from there.

Core Engine & Performance

Ported both games to x64 (RTW/M2TW)
Rewrote the entire DX9 layer (RTW/M2TW)
Implemented DX9Ex, fixed the alt-tab lag (RTW)
Made the game roughly 50% faster in general (RTW/M2TW)
Optimised input handling (~10% FPS gain) (RTW/M2TW)
Optimised trig functions by merging sin/cos calls (RTW/M2TW)
Massively optimised fog of war code, especially on large maps. This has been plaguing both RTW and RR for a while... not anymore (RTW/M2TW)
Made loading saves / replays / matches up to 40x faster in large battles (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the "wall bug": the game no longer drops to single-digit frames when you break a wall or ram something. Turns out the culprit was a software rendering fallback. Also fixed a crash which sometimes happened during those. (M2TW)
Removed the 1000 FPS cap because we were hitting it (RTW/M2TW)
Made the game startup 1 second faster (RTW/M2TW)
Enabled triple buffering by default. Slightly higher latency but quite a bit more FPS (RTW)
Cut fade times across the board. 2-3 second fades were nice in 2004 but they just feel sluggish now (RTW/M2TW)
Made endturns less of a slow-motion suicide-inducing experience. BEGONE BOWING DIPLOMAT (RTW/M2TW)
Updated the game to use 32-bit vertices for procedurally generated geometry. Note: .cas model limit is still 65k, let us know if you need bigger! (RTW/M2TW)
Halved the size of the REX executable (40MB -> 16MB) (RTW)
Disabled address randomisation / DEP for easier debugging (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed tan/atan having potential consistency problems across different PCs (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a memory corruption with mods (e.g. Stainless Steel 6.4) where adding UI elements and sprites corrupted memory. A common symptom was a black screen after changing video settings (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a whole bunch of memory corruptions discovered while debugging vegetation limits (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed several more memory corruptions around lists. This also fixes vegetation rendering with >4 types of trees (RTW/M2TW)
Video cache to speed up senate tab selection (RTW)
Misc. optimisations (RTW/M2TW)

Camera & Controls

RTS Camera

Implemented the improved RTS camera for RTW. Hold MMB to rotate (RTW)
Increased zoom in/out range on both battle and campaign maps (RTW/M2TW)
Unlocked even more zoom in/out on the campaign map (RTW/M2TW)
Implemented smooth campaign scroll (RTW)
Added scrollwheel zoom smoothing for the battle camera (RTW/M2TW)
Added scrollwheel zoom smoothing for the stratmap camera (RTW/M2TW)
Made the zoom-to-cursor on the stratmap accurate: it zooms to your cursor exactly (RTW/M2TW)
Rewrote the zoom/move sliders. Slow is slow, fast is fast, middle is okay (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a bug which didn't let you zoom into your soldiers' face (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the camera being hypersensitive (RTW)
Fixed the camera sliders in RTW being completely nuts when you raise them anywhere above the minimum (RTW)
Fixed the campaign camera zoom, should be very smooth now (M2TW)
Fixed the edge panning bug (RTW/M2TW)
Camera move and rotate speed decoupled for edge pan (RTW/M2TW)
Camera zoom speed slider fixed (RTW/M2TW)
Mouse edge rotate is now an option, also available in preferences.txt (auto-generates) (RTW/M2TW)
Edge pan rotate/move option restored (RTW)
Made the modern controls work with the replay camera (RTW)
Fixed the TW camera (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed inverted control problems with the TW camera, added middle mouse support (RTW/M2TW)
Made the city view camera fully upgraded: middle mouse, etc. (RTW/M2TW)

Input & Mouse

Raw input support with menus for game/camera settings (RTW/M2TW)
Moved the RTW input over to the M2 way. Faster, fewer issues with high-refresh rate mice (RTW)
Fixed the mouse being quantised to 2.5 pixels (yes...), causing a "glitchy" feeling (RTW/M2TW)
Crisp mouse cursor (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the middle mouse being resolution-dependent (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed ultrawide resolutions desyncing your mouse in menus (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed ultrawide resolutions desyncing your mouse on the campaign map (RTW/M2TW)
More cursor desync fixes (RTW/M2TW)

Attack & Run Preferences

Attack and run preferences implemented (RTW/M2TW)
Run preference modes: single click to run, always/on_drag/toggle_only (RTW/M2TW)
Drag run can be set to walk with ctrl modifier (RTW/M2TW)
Minimum pixel drag length set from 0 to 100 to not make drag formation too sensitive (RTW/M2TW)
Configurable from preferences file (auto-generates) (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed siege towers outrunning units with run preferences (M2TW)
Fixed ungrouped onagers running towards buildings (M2TW)
Fixed desync with run preferences (RTW/M2TW)

Graphics & Rendering

Display & Resolution

Set the game's resolution to native by default (RTW)
Increased the maximum resolution without editing preferences (RTW)
Added a vsync preference instead of forced vsync (RTW)
Fixed blackscreening when you change vsync or anti-aliasing settings (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed more instances of blackscreen / frozen UI (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the alt-tab / freeze bug where the game's screen got "stuck" (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed window resizing. No more jerking your window or the mouse around (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed ultrawide so it doesn't glitch the camera or the UI out (RTW/M2TW)
A few new graphics settings added (RTW/M2TW)

Font & Text Rendering

New font rendering for CRISP menus. If you don't notice, please consider going to a doctor to get your eyes checked (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the UI font being weird and uneven (RTW)
Fixed fonts with mods which supply custom fonts (EB2, Tsardoms, etc.) (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed more kerning issues with legacy fonts in mods (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed an instance of font blurriness on specific scrolls (RTW/M2TW)

Textures & Sprites

New way of loading sprites via .sd.xml files. Edit spritesheets with a text editor instead of specialised tools (RTW/M2TW)
HiDPI sprite support: optionally specify physical (tw/th) and logical (w/h) sizes independently for upscaling/downscaling without changing UI size (RTW/M2TW)
Add "naked" texture support: for every .texture file, the game loads a .dds with the same name instead. No need to convert anymore. (M2TW)
Fixed terrain textures being slightly blurry (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed .sd files trying to convert without an .xml (M2TW)

Map Rendering

Fixed the "map name wobble". City names glide smoothly on the map now (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed widescreen city name desync (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed ultrawide scaling city names wrong initially (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed nametag drift. Also fixed when resizing the window (RTW/M2TW)
Made map shadows / coastlines / similar map buffers dynamic. No more coastline and mountain wobble glitches on larger maps (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed overflow in campaign map shadows (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed grass "popping in" from the sides, especially affected RTW (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed no FOW making mountains blue (RTW)
Fixed Roman soldiers being on LSD (RTW)
City view reimplemented from RTW with actual lighting (M2TW)

Misc Rendering

Fixed banners animating way too fast on high FPS (RTW)
Fixed the banner vertex bug (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed plaza banners glitching out (M2TW)
Fixed various bugs which might result in glitched models (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed vanilla RTW having the BI WRE icon (RTW)
Fixed black settlements in Kingdoms, with a proper pack instead of mod config hackery (M2TW)
Fixed ancillaries and similar UI elements being oversized (RTW/M2TW)

Combat

Pike / Phalanx Overhaul

Fixed pike bracing being completely broken: all brace stances were collapsing to near-zero due to a fallthrough bug. Front-rank guarding pikemen were 24x weaker than intended. (M2TW)
Fixed AP pike units (e.g. Voulgiers) not receiving any bracing bonuses (M2TW)
Braced defenders now actually take reduced damage from frontal attacks. lol unimplemented feature (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed pike formations dropping their pikes and switching to swords when engaged in melee. They now stay in the pike stance, with individual soldiers drawing swords only when enemies get inside pike range, then returning to pikes afterwards. (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed phalanx soldiers losing their anti-cavalry charge bonus during combat animations (M2TW)
Fixed phalanx soldiers never entering combat state during spear stance. Schiltrom worked fine, phalanx was excluded (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed schiltrom-only units not getting spear equipment allocated (M2TW)
Fixed AI reactions forcing pike formations to switch to swords even when not directly ordered (RTW/M2TW)
Made pikes directional: they only draw secondary weapon (i.e. swords) if they get flanked (RTW/M2TW)
Made pikes keep formation in face of melee. Just like schiltrom, they only pursue if the enemy is fleeing (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a serious bug where pikes just... never lowered after they initially decided to stay up (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed pikes being "rotated out" in combat and breaking formation (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed cavalry phasing through pike formations. Rear-rank pikemen would just stand there because the game assumed the pikes would cover them, but only the front 2 ranks actually had pike collision. Now ranks without spear coverage fight back normally. (RTW/M2TW)
Overhauled the pike spear point system to actually work against cavalry charges. Damage is now resolved instantly on contact instead of waiting for a full stab animation. Before, cavalry would ride past during the animation windup because the pikemen were too lazy and fat to stab them again. The stab animation still plays, it's just cosmetic now. (M2TW)
Increased the formation depth from 2 to 4 for pikes (M2TW)
Extended the bracing table from 3 to 5 ranks to match the new formation depth (M2TW)
Removed a restriction when bracing: pikemen kneeling had their pikes lowered and positioned but the game wouldn't let them actually stab anyone (M2TW)
Pike formations now react faster to incoming cavalry charges. When pikes detect nearby enemies, the phalanx immediately enters free attack mode instead of waiting around (M2TW)
Pikemen no longer break formation to fight with swords when cavalry slip past the front rank. The melee skip now uses the formation's facing instead of each individual soldier's facing, so one cavalryman getting through doesn't cause the entire front line to go "oh shit, melee time" and collapse. (RTW/M2TW)
Pikemen no longer randomly raise their pikes during combat. The game would switch soldiers to their walking animation whenever they needed to reposition even slightly, which raised the pike as a side effect. Now phalanx soldiers stay in their brace animation during combat. (M2TW)
As is common knowledge, pikemen can't stab from the third row. We made sure to alert them to this fact. (RTW/M2TW)
More pike tweaks. They should no longer instantly turn around with their pikes (RTW/M2TW)

Gunpowder Units

Gunpowder units (Arquebusiers, Musketeers, etc.) now fire significantly faster. Fixed several bugs in the fire-by-rank mechanism that caused long pauses between volleys and unnecessary restarts (M2TW)
Gunpowder units no longer stop firing when the target moves to the side. They now rotate and keep shooting instead of giving up entirely (M2TW)
Fixed gunpowder units "occasionally" shooting their own soldiers during rank transitions (M2TW)

Cavalry & Melee

Fixed high attack value units with push animations (mostly two-handers) dealing zero damage half the time. Strike tables adjusted to not override successful hits into push attacks. (M2TW)
High ground bonuses now work for sword/spear units (M2TW)
Made cavalry slash more widely, not ignoring people who want to stab them from the side. Fixes horses being useless sods in melee. (M2TW)
Changed the charge momentum modifier from 20 to 1 for cavalry; from 1.5 to 1 for missiles. Prevents some of the more "interesting" collisions (RTW)
Fixed precursor javelins to throw their javelins then actually switch to melee instead of freezing up (M2TW)
Added proper chariot and scorpion cart support, mirroring RTW (M2TW)

Misc Combat

Shield piercing attribute added: halves shield value. Works with missiles and siege equipment/towers. Use sp in stat_pri_attr. For auto-resolve, kicks in when defender has more than 2 shield value. (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed shield piercing being double-applied (RTW/M2TW)
Siege equipment not sticking to walls and requiring alt attack + guard mode wizardry: fixed (M2TW)
Fixed soldiers still being upright when dead (M2TW)
Fixed horde units retreating onto ships. Now they just don't (RTW/M2TW)
Units cannot resist swimming (RTW)
Berserkers work now! Fixed crashes and missing sound. (M2TW)
Shield wall and schiltrom enabled for use in RTW and BI (RTW)
BI abilities (war cry, shield wall, schiltrom, rally, kill elephants, drop engines) now hoverable and selectable with mouse (RTW)
Unit formation expanding glitch around obstacles resolved (RTW/M2TW)
Unit responsiveness fix for both games (RTW/M2TW)
'Can fire at will' now disabled for units that don't have missile weapons (RTW/M2TW)
Stairstepping deployment when dragging units fixed (RTW/M2TW)
Units fight with secondary weapons out except for phalanx units (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed wide BI recruited units (RTW)
Raised max experience in multiplayer from 3 to 9 (M2TW)

UI

Building Scroll

Made buildings scrollable. YOU PEOPLE WERE FINE WITH ONLY 24 BUILDINGS SHOWING THIS ENTIRE TIME??!??!? (M2TW)
Building scrolling implemented for M2EX with all previous fixes ported (M2TW)
Building scrolling functional in RTW (RTW)
Building scroll buttons now show/hide depending on whether you're on the first or last row (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the building scroll not closing when a building is demolished (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed buildings not disappearing instantly when destroyed in BI. Visual bug: the building was destroyed but kept hanging around until you reopened the scroll (RTW)
Third row clipping through in the building tab fixed (RTW/M2TW)
Sliders only appear when there is a need for scrolling additional rows (RTW/M2TW)
Forts/settlements/characters now load properly without needing to deselect first (RTW/M2TW)

Info & Tooltips

Fixed weapon upgrades showing the wrong value (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed armour upgrades showing the wrong value (RTW/M2TW)
Added troop count to balance of power tooltip + a subtle flashing effect to warn you about significant changes (RTW)
Waypoint flickering fix (M2TW)
Kill counts on tooltips (M2TW)
Advanced battle results screen now shows both allied and enemy results, scroll widened (RTW/M2TW)
Implemented the M2-style economy display in RTW. Settlements no longer display global costs, so a settlement with a garrison no longer shows up as negative income (RTW)
Sliders for army info panel resolved (RTW/M2TW)
Set faction heir via UI. No more stupid retinue swapping scripts (M2TW)

Misc UI

Fixed side notifications falling slower when you wiggle the mouse (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the -+ bug: negatives are properly displayed as - instead of -+ (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed messages having letters being cut off at the en (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed localisation text overlays (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the recruitment scroll not updating when you merge units in a city (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the building destroy button not being enabled (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed popups not showing up in RTW (RTW)
Fixed the stupid popup message on BI/Kingdoms when you load the game (RTW/M2TW)

Campaign & Strategy Map

Removed the faction limit completely (RTW/M2TW)
Added save compatibility for pre-faction limit vanilla saves (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed relationships with dead factions counting (RTW/M2TW)
Dead factions even with surrender_regions can be at peace now (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed surrender_regions not properly killing the faction (RTW/M2TW)
Adjusted RTW squalor to be in-line with M2. No longer requiring you to genocide Rome every few years (RTW)
Fixed the taxable income cap giving you less income after surpassing 15000 (~by 1500) (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the Merchant Wharf + tradefleets bug (non-Kingdoms). Normalised to Kingdoms behaviour (M2TW)
Distance to capital penalty now moddable by faction. Optional line in descr_sm_factions after prefers_naval_invasions: distance_to_capital_modifier 100. Default is 100, scales as a multiplier (M2TW)
Fixed a pathfinding desync issue where the AI just stops moving units on the stratmap. Especially prevalent in RTW, previously required quit-to-menu and reload (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the AI giving up on first pathfinding failure. It will retry a better path, AI armies should be more responsive. (RTW/M2TW)
"Improved" RTW pathfinding. AI armies can go further without throwing their hands up (RTW)
Fixed the stuck reinforcement bug. Armies won't stay glued to the edge of the map and not doing anything (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed highways not showing on the map when you upgrade them (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed highways being invisible / not properly buildable (RTW/M2TW)
Watchtower removal: the build watchtower button gets replaced with a "remove watchtower" button when you're standing on one. Uses the action for the turn. No refunds lol (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed crashing when your parent faction dies when you play as a shadow faction (multiple fixes) (RTW)
Fixed your faction losing when playing as a shadow faction and your parent dies (RTW)
Fixed shadow factions crashing the game when you overtake your mother or your mother is destroyed (RTW)
Fixed a hilarious save corruption with campaign scripts, which we haven't noticed because vanilla doesn't have any (M2TW)
Added the M2TW campaign script capability to RTW. Scripts now properly save without the advisor hack, and you can always save without the script blocking it (RTW)
Added campaign_script.txt autoload. Place it next to the map files and it loads automatically (RTW/M2TW)
Made the descr_vegetation.db parsing smarter: parses the .txt and only regenerates the .db when contents differ, instead of ignoring your changes unless you delete it (RTW/M2TW)
Made the map parsing slightly more lenient. No more warnings for non-adjacent tiles / river crossings (RTW/M2TW)
Turns per year support in descr_strat with turns_per_year. Income and character old age death chance scale accordingly (RTW)
Settlement locked maps can now have adjustable weather/seasons (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a serious save bug which made old saves unreadable (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed custom maps without Apollonia, Segesta and Syracuse crashing the game (RTW)
Fixed the River Trebia crash and river crossing crashes (RTW/M2TW)

Multiplayer

Removed the max. 100 unit limit in the lobby (RTW/M2TW)
Shared deployment (Rome 2 style) toggleable in custom battles/multiplayer, replacing arcade mode (RTW/M2TW)
Shared deployment now passed to enemy team too (RTW/M2TW)
Deployment waiting phase now shows how many players have readied up. No more #p spam (RTW/M2TW)
Deployment can be active during waiting phase (RTW/M2TW)
Delay phase (loading/general speeches) starts automatically after everyone has loaded in (RTW/M2TW)
AI-controlled players in the MP lobby (M2TW)
Fixed a desync bug relating to AI bots in MP (M2TW)
Fixed desync issues with shared deployment (RTW)
Fixed joining lobbies in MP (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed lobbies permanently hourglassing. If you can't join, it just stops and quits to the lobby screen properly (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the lobby crashing in RTW (RTW)
Fixed the lobby faction selection (RTW)
Fixed a crash when opening the custom battle lobby (RTW/M2TW)
Chat now shows (team), (all), and (private) prefixes (RTW/M2TW)
Performance warning for too many troops bumped from 4000 to 30000 (RTW/M2TW)
Units in MP no longer move at the first unit's speed. WTF? (M2TW)
More desync fixes (RTW/M2TW)

Modding & Configuration

descr_ex.txt

Added descr_ex.txt for patch-specific toggles (RTW/M2TW)
Audio cutoff distance configurable (RTW/M2TW)

descr_caps_ex.txt

Added descr_caps_ex.txt for "progressive enhancement". Mods that haven't been updated get vanilla behaviour by default, modders can opt into engine features when their mods are ready (RTW/M2TW)
First feature: trade fleet fix. Enable using trade_fleet EDB entries for the number of trade connections instead of port level only, as in vanilla M2 without Kingdoms. Activated for vanilla by default, mods get old behaviour unless opted in. (M2TW)

EDB (export_descr_buildings)

Added bracket support in EDB syntax (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed NOT conditions hiding requirements in the building tab (RTW/M2TW)
Implemented building_present_specific_level, like building_present_min_level but better (RTW/M2TW)
Added auto_deconstruct capability: if the condition is met, building is yeet. Proper capability, multiple conditions OR-ed together. Triggers instantly on build/capture. Example: auto_deconstruct requires factions { franks, } and not building_factions { franks, } (RTW/M2TW)

EDU (export_descr_unit)

Added ai_cannot_skirmish attribute. Prevents AI from toggling skirmish mode for the unit (RTW/M2TW)
Added ai_cannot_toggle_formation attribute. Prevents AI from toggling loose formation for the unit (RTW/M2TW)
Added support for row spacing less than column spacing (RTW/M2TW)
export_descr_unit now warns you for invalid spacing (RTW/M2TW)
Added recruit_priority_offset support, matching M2TW's existing feature for influencing AI recruitment (RTW)
Max unit size raised to 500 (RTW/M2TW)

ALX Features (RTW)

Implemented all ALX features except the tournament: restrict_faction for mercenaries using "restrict", win conditions (alexander alive), show date as turns remaining, custom portraits and battle/strat models (RTW)
ai_do_not_attack_faction implemented (RTW)
Added -noalexander flag to play the base game with ALX. Also works for BI despite the name. (RTW)

Misc Modding

Added VERSION_TEXT tag into the .lnt, unhardcoding the x64 text from the top left corner into the version string (RTW/M2TW)
Made the culture DB much more resilient to invalid entries. No longer skips the entire file for random parser errors (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed descr_caps parsing so mods without one won't get messed up (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed incredibly badly-behaved mods with broken paths not playing music/animations properly (RTW/M2TW)
Added "naked" texture support: loads .dds instead of .texture when one with the same name exists (M2TW)

Uncapped Limits

The following hardcoded limits been yeeted.

Faction count: no limit (RTW/M2TW)
Weather events (RTW/M2TW)
Models / DMB entries (RTW/M2TW)
descr_aerial_map_bases entries (RTW/M2TW)
cursor_action_tooltips entries (RTW/M2TW)
descr_engines entries (RTW/M2TW)
Event images and strings (RTW/M2TW)
descr_grass entries (RTW/M2TW)
descr_particle entries (RTW/M2TW)
descr_ship entries (RTW/M2TW)
descr_ui_animations entries (RTW/M2TW)
descr_water entries (RTW/M2TW)
.spr sprite animations (was 500) (RTW)
Soldiers per unit: raised to 500 (RTW/M2TW)
Unique recruitable unit types per settlement (RTW/M2TW)
Conditional capabilities per building level (RTW/M2TW)
Religion/belief count (was hardcoded to 3) (RTW/M2TW)
ExcludedAncillaries (RTW/M2TW)
Hidden resources (RTW/M2TW)
Settlements / map regions (RTW/M2TW)
Landmasses (was 20) (RTW/M2TW)
Region size (was 100x100, now 500x500) (RTW/M2TW)
Map position overflow: fixed above 32768 (RTW/M2TW)
UI textures (RTW/M2TW)
Fonts (RTW/M2TW)
FMVs (RTW/M2TW)
UI resources: all limits removed (RTW/M2TW)
Trade fleets / trade routes per city (RTW/M2TW)
Building descriptions in EDB (RTW/M2TW)
Building levels per building tree (RTW/M2TW)
Plugins per building tree (RTW/M2TW)
Plugin levels per plugin (RTW/M2TW)
Entity limit in savegames: raised from 65,535 to 4 billion (RTW/M2TW)
Max bones: raised from 23 to 24 (RTW/M2TW)
Engine stations / siege crew: raised to 16 (RTW/M2TW)
Tree count (RTW/M2TW)
Border vertex buffers for large maps (RTW/M2TW)
MP lobby unit limit (was 100) (RTW/M2TW)
MP max experience: raised from 3 to 9 (M2TW)

Scripting & Console

Unlocked all console commands. NOTE: zero warranty on ANY of these, they might crash your game, corrupt your savefile, etc. (RTW/M2TW)
Added SettlementUnderSiege condition: check whether the settlement itself is under siege (RTW/M2TW)
Adjusted SettlementName/TargetSettlementName to use quoting (RTW/M2TW)
Adjusted I_SettlementExists/I_SettlementOwner/I_NumberUnitsInSettlement/I_SettlementUnderSiege/I_UnitsToRetrain to use quoting (RTW/M2TW)
Made all script conditions usable in if/while loops, not just the ones prefixed with I_ (RTW/M2TW)
Added campaign_script.txt autoload. Place it next to the map files (RTW/M2TW)
Added set_population console command to set population exactly. No more spamming add_population (RTW/M2TW)
Changed move_character to work with your cursor instead of typing coords explicitly (RTW/M2TW)
Changed move_character to work with your selected character instead of typing the character's name in moon runes (RTW/M2TW)
Implemented destroy_building script command: specify settlement, chain, and whether it refunds (M2TW)
Fixed spawn_army not working for rebel/slave navies (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed spawn_army always creating land armies for admirals (RTW)
Added dump_docudemon. Run it from RomeShell to list all available scripting commands (RTW/M2TW)

Sound & Audio

Fixed the sound bug (RTW/M2TW)
Made soldiers' sounds fall off less by default with distance due to the increased camera zoomout. Configurable in descr_ex (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed some sounds being cut off, for example death screams (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed berserkers having no sound (M2TW)

File I/O & Mod Compatibility

Made stringtables layered. Missing strings in mods load vanilla instead of causing problems (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed pack handling on RTW. Loads legacy packs (.pak) properly and also allows M2 packs (.pack) in your mod. All files can be packed, reducing load times. (RTW)
Fixed mods not being able to overwrite vanilla .pak due to path resolution (RTW)
Fixed .strings.bin files being loaded first compared to .txt files if they were newer (M2TW)
The game no longer writes .strings.bin files. Caused crashes with stale ones in mods (M2TW)
Fixed io.file_first reversing the pack loading order. Now loads A->Z, so if you include a z_data.pack, it loads last. Previously, file_first toggled between Z->A and A->Z. (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed vanilla paths being read first for textures instead of mod paths. Portraits were loaded from vanilla even if you supplied them yourself (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed mods loading vanilla files (multiple instances, it was just a mess) (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the game writing converted .sd into the basegame instead of mods on the legacy path (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed more file path handling which only accidentally worked in retail (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed Kingdoms paths being wonky (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed type 2 stringtables not properly loading the text version instead of the binary version (RTW/M2TW)
Improved distribution to not overwrite any files (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed vanilla string values that are missing when playing mods now loading properly (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed localisation text not being read from vanilla if a mod doesn't supply new ones (RTW/M2TW)

Stability & Crash Fixes

Vastly improved crash reporter. Crash reports saved to reports/ folder with detailed stack traces (RTW/M2TW)
Added most asserts into the log you'd see in RR, except the sensitive ones (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed RTW not logging. It now has a system.log.txt just like M2. (RTW)
Added M2EX-style error reports to REX (RTW)
Warn the user if they install on OneDrive-synced folders (known for crashing / corrupting saves) (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed DMB crash above 255 units (RTW)
Fixed a crash when parsing invalid character records by mods (RTW)
Fixed a crash when mods supply invalid textures (RTW)
Fixed a crash relating to broken loading screen quotes (RTW)
Fixed a memory corruption caused by mods, went unnoticed in the original (RTW)
Fixed a crash when a trait name is empty / broken (RTW)
Fixed mods crashing with too many wall entries (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed mod-related texture crashes (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed EB2-related crashes with invalid files (M2TW)
Fixed CTD after exiting custom battle (EB2) (M2TW)
Fixed building cards crashing the game under certain situations (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a unicode crash with mods having illegal characters (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the unicode name bug producing garbled names with accents (RTW)
Fixed a crash with AUC (RTW)
Fixed vegetation crash with mods having nonexistent entries (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a crash with mod models with out-of-bounds index positions. Fix your mods, guys... (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a pathfinding crash on the strategic map (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed ALX saves not properly loading. Looks like no one was playing that lmao (RTW)
Fixed BI (and probably other mods) not playing their menu videos (RTW)
Fixed a very rare crash when exiting a battle (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a music type-related crash with extended regions (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the banner crash (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed level 5 (huge city) settlement crash for unwalled settlements (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a vegetation-related crash (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed a serious save corruption when the savegame entity count exceeded 65,535 (RTW/M2TW)
Various other mod crash fixes too numerous to list individually (RTW/M2TW)

Quality of Life

Agents can now be SKIPPED WITH SPACEBAR (M2TW)
Added the x64 watermark on main menu screens (RTW/M2TW)
Fixed the window title just saying "R" (RTW)
Made the game playable in Steam offline mode, with better error messages if it doesn't work (RTW/M2TW)
Improved crash logging with better reports (RTW/M2TW)

20/03