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Total War Warhammer 2 |OT| Of Mice and Ratmen

Do you suggest the game for someone that tries the total war series for the first time?
Also, is it GPU heavy? Is there someone with a gtx 970 that can tell me if he can achieve 60fps?

My first Total War game was Warhammer I and now I'm absolutely addicted. If you like fantasy and strategy you should love TWW2 as well.
I have a GTX 970 as well and it can run it at 60+ FPS with some reduced settings.
 

ExVicis

Member
I'm not sure what should my main focuses as the DE are but so far most of my game has been fighting annoying stacks from Norsca, which isn't tough but goddamn is it annoying. I want to fight those undeserving High Elves dammit.
 
I'm putting the Clan Pestilence campaign on hold. Lustria is an awful starting place. I'm at war with three different Lizardmen factions, two of which have way better armies, despite me owning most of the fucking continent and my economy still can't support two low-tier armies. Now the third small Lizardmen faction in the south-west corner declared war and is razing my far-away provinces and I can't raise a third army because they are too expensive in TW2. This is too annoying to handle at the moment

I mentionned how I've been playing but basically, a lord+19slaves is less than 1k upkeep(bit more until you have the tech that reduces slave upkeep by 25%, think it was 1.2k then).

That's all my additional armies, lord are all plague lords for vermintide(I had a warlord once and he did ok but died valiantly defending against 3 high elf stacks nonsense, he's in rat-heaven now).

Even my main army was mostly slaves until I got a better economy and I only replaced a bunch with plague monk due to the -50% upkeep trait of Skrolk. You shouldn't need more unless fighting on low corruption, not having the food for menace below additional uses or obviously if fighting more than one stack.

Even 90 turns in, I'm still fighting and winning battles with my slave stacks against much higher tier units. Obviously most of the lords are higher levels so I have better spells to leverage the difference(Wither and The Thirteenth Spell) as well as the bell mount buffs, but still it's fairly common to get heroic victories because the balance of power shows the enemy absolutely stomping me, and in the end all they kill is like 600 out of my 3000slaves while they lose the fight and generally lose several high tier units in the process(so when I fight them again I can often win the autoresolve instead of having to fight them again, although sometimes I have to fight them manually again, and again until they finally get deleted).

Anyway the way I see it, you don't have the economy as skaven to raise several powerful armies, you need a bunch of slaves mixed in, or the way I do it, entirely slaves. The stronger units, even just clanrats, have pretty high upkeep compared to the money you make per region and the food thing forces you to give up 30% of your income in many regions to sustain your settlements alone. Especially early game you want to rely heavily on your free clanrats from Menace Below and dump all your food in it to win fights. If you win a fight, it'll pay for the Menace Below costs more or less between the food from winning and the food from captives.
 
Kinda been dark on this game, hope this isn't a dumb question.

I'm playing as DE, and currently dealing with the Norsca. Suffice to say, their army composition is alot like vanilla TWW1, which is to say they build basically all missile cav and trolls, and some useless infantry that routes to my Darkshards easily. My question is: If I buy the Norsca DLC, will that open up the options for the AI? Fighting mostly missile cav is kind of tiresome once you know how to deal with it.
 

Violet_0

Banned
I mentionned how I've been playing but basically, a lord+19slaves is less than 1k upkeep(bit more until you have the tech that reduces slave upkeep by 25%, think it was 1.2k then)

each army upkeep takes a % cut from your total income, so that lord should cost you a lot more than that. I use some slave slingers in my two armies and made a slave-only army specifically to help boost a cities defense, but I doubt they would hold up against feral stegadons and temple guards in a normal battle (turn 50). The problem is that I'm getting crushed by three different Lizardmen factions from all sides, the AI just decided to take it out on me and the Skaven economy is terrible, at least early game. There's a chance that I can still salvage that campaign, but it's too much work for me right now. I started a Cult of Pleasure campaign instead, which has been pretty smooth sailing so far thanks to the Hydra you start with
 
managing food with the skaven is a pain in the ass. Managed to confederate with clan pestilence but i didn't recieve its lord i assume its bug :/
 

ohyescoolgreat

Neo Member
managing food with the skaven is a pain in the ass. Managed to confederate with clan pestilence but i didn't recieve its lord i assume its bug :/

If Skrolk wasn't an active lord on the campaign map you won't have received him. He'll likely have been wounded in a battle. Same thing happened to me when I confederated with Clan Mors.

How are people finding the Vortex component of the campaign? Ever since I found out you that you have to win a slightly skewed battle if the AI reaches the final rite before you, it killed any sense of urgency to compete in that race. I guess it's a nice story component but they should make it more worthwhile to do the rites first and offer another campaign mode for people who just want the traditional victory conditions.
 

ElyrionX

Member
If Skrolk wasn't an active lord on the campaign map you won't have received him. He'll likely have been wounded in a battle. Same thing happened to me when I confederated with Clan Mors.

How are people finding the Vortex component of the campaign? Ever since I found out you that you have to win a slightly skewed battle if the AI reaches the final rite before you, it killed any sense of urgency to compete in that race. I guess it's a nice story component but they should make it more worthwhile to do the rites first and offer another campaign mode for people who just want the traditional victory conditions.

Same here. The AI has attempted the last ritual twice now while I have not even done my first; both got crushed by Chaos and other AI forces while I sat back to do my own thing.

Anywsy, not sure if you realize this but you can win the vortex campaign the traditional way. There is a domination victory option you can see when you click on objectives.
 
each army upkeep takes a % cut from your total income, so that lord should cost you a lot more than that. I use some slave slingers in my two armies and made a slave-only army specifically to help boost a cities defense, but I doubt they would hold up against feral stegadons and temple guards in a normal battle (turn 50). The problem is that I'm getting crushed by three different Lizardmen factions from all sides, the AI just decided to take it out on me and the Skaven economy is terrible, at least early game. There's a chance that I can still salvage that campaign, but it's too much work for me right now. I started a Cult of Pleasure campaign instead, which has been pretty smooth sailing so far thanks to the Hydra you start with

Yeah each army takes a cut but it's still low. I checked earlier before taking a break and it is up to 1300 or so now, but I also have 7armies. Most of it is for the lord themselves.

Temple guards and stegadons aren't so bad, they're obviously tough but stegadons mostly I just throw 3-4 spear slaves at it and temple guards if you rear charge them with some summoned clanrats they take a fair amount of damage and if you use Wither they actually melt pretty quick. Also for either, I'll use The Thirteenth spell if I'm not playing Skrolk, and if I am I'll just melt them with his items(he has one single target item that does like 40% health damage and one aoe item that does like 30% to everything close to you).

But yeah you can end up in a bad spot I guess, I had a bunch of lizards everywhere and the dwarfs coming down the mountains but after killing their stacks over and over I had a bunch of turns of peace where I had some time to grab every ruins on the south coast and the dwarfs were getting hit in the back by Teclis so they dropped the war with me and stayed in their mountains until I killed them like 40turns later.

Anyway might as well switch it up if your game is messed up, I generally restart a bunch of times in the first ~10turns depending on how bad it goes. I think I did skaven first 3turns like 4times before I figured what I wanted to do.

Now my main concern is I haven't been doing any of the vortex event stuff yet, and while I'm pretty much caught up on ressources, I still need to spend a bunch of turns waiting so kinda scared. I tried doing an intervention force on the elves, it worked ok at first, they killed one of the settlement then some other elf faction came in and claimed it, the intervention forces then kept going(malekith made one too) and they got smashed by Tyrion and some other army both in a row but he was too far to reach the settlement anyway, and then the turn before it was about to fail, surprise he confederates the elves that took the settlement and still completes it.

I'm thinking I'll either have to sail a couple of decent armies before he reaches the next step and try to take out his ressource bases, or I'll go further north, steal some of frogboy ressources and race him.
 
Kinda been dark on this game, hope this isn't a dumb question.

I'm playing as DE, and currently dealing with the Norsca. Suffice to say, their army composition is alot like vanilla TWW1, which is to say they build basically all missile cav and trolls, and some useless infantry that routes to my Darkshards easily. My question is: If I buy the Norsca DLC, will that open up the options for the AI? Fighting mostly missile cav is kind of tiresome once you know how to deal with it.

No it won't. Norsca wasn't originally planned for warhammer 1 so the new units arent in two. I believe i heard the updated norsca will come with the combined campaign or sometime after.

Sadly were stuck with the old norsca for now though.

Edit: Also if you've bought the game in the first week you should already have norsca.
 

ISee

Member
The high elves started to throw armies with 5+ dragons and a lot of archers, bolt throwers, phoenix and seaguard units at me. The dragon mobility and insane bow range makes it a bit hard to deal with this kind of composition. I have no trouble with skaven, lizardmen or other dark elves factions but a hard time with high elves. Still conquering them though.

The game also started to be unstable (turn 120) and sometimes freezes/crashes or has strange UI glitches (UI and parts of the map disappear and reload) after 1-2h of gameplay. Anybody else with similar problems?
 

TheFawz

Member
Was really struggling to hit a good balance of performance and visuals with my 970, but now I upgraded to a 1080 and can hit stable 60FPS at all time in 1080 at max graphics (AA excluded cause it's borked).

Having a blast playing as Dark Elves, and overall enjoying it a lot more than the first game. This brings me back to Shogun2 levels of fun. I really like all the small tweaks like Lord traits being more structured. Everything just flows better.
 

Gothos

Member
Downloaded pirated version to check opitmization. Runs really well on my old i5-3470, SSD and GTX 970. Easy 50-60fps on High setting with Ultra textures. Uninstalled and waiting for additional races (gimme Tomb Kings), some price drop and more time to play it. Can't wait!
 

Violet_0

Banned
Should I start on easy if I'm new to the series?

you could play on normal too, the more important aspect is which faction you choose. Some are marked as "Easy" (one of the HE and Lizard lords), I'd advise you to stay away from the Skaven as a completey new player ( "Normal" for Clan Pestilence is a big fat lie). In general, the game is easier the more isolated your starting positions is
Temple guards and stegadons aren't so bad, they're obviously tough but stegadons mostly I just throw 3-4 spear slaves at it and temple guards if you rear charge them with some summoned clanrats they take a fair amount of damage and if you use Wither they actually melt pretty quick. Also for either, I'll use The Thirteenth spell if I'm not playing Skrolk, and if I am I'll just melt them with his items(he has one single target item that does like 40% health damage and one aoe item that does like 30% to everything close to you).
the slaves don't break up an run even against high-end units and monsters? Then what is the purpose of the clansrats? This seems like an odd design decision, slaves have 1/3 or less of the upkeep of normal clansrats, but similar combat stats (their ranged damage is even identical to normal slingers)
 

Dmax3901

Member
So there's a Rite that gives Lizardmen a full stack of feral dinos and holy shit 20 dinosaurs is outrageous in the early game.

It's a little ridiculous hey. Based on the rite details it says it lasts 14 turns but I'm pretty sure I've had mine longer than that.
 
It's a little ridiculous hey. Based on the rite details it says it lasts 14 turns but I'm pretty sure I've had mine longer than that.

I mean, it's almost like... who even cares how long they last? Just keep smashing them into the teeth of whatever you need to kill and laugh while their sheer bulk overwhelms them.

I took a fortified city backed up by a full stack of Skaven by just rushing the gates with these guys. There isn't an answer to them at the point in the game you can get them.
 

Lord Phol

Member
I kind of wish you could watch replays directly after a battle or during the campaign. This is one of few games where I really enjoy watching how things played out.
 

ISee

Member
I kind of wish you could watch replays directly after a battle or during the campaign. This is one of few games where I really enjoy watching how things played out.

Me too. Seeing those awesome, detailed models in action is a blast.
 

Lord Phol

Member
I made a big mistake starting the third ritual with both my armies away from my main base fighting other Lizardmen. I was doing fine just a few turns ago. Now I got the following either in my base or on their way:

1x High Elf intervention
1x Skaven Intervention
1x Skaven other army.
1x Vampire army.
1x Norsca army
2x Chaos armies

046EAF287CA58C4647031945DF3C2E6919047FA0

Also just went bankrupt by loosing 3 settlements and being raided. This is probably the biggest turn-around I've seen so far in a TW Warhammer match. Slightly salty because I just lost an important city defending against the chaos armies. Odds were highly against me, but thanks to the walls and some micromanaging I managed to come out on top unit-wise as well as kill their leader. However some of their units had managed to get into the city and capture the victory point. No matter what I did I couldn't get my units in there. They were either stopped by other minor enemy units or just not obeying my orders/clicks at all. Kind of had that in other matches as well where it feels like units aren't doing what I want them to. Especially noticble with the ranged skinks, not sure if the skirmish (run away from melee) and fire at will modes are part of the problem.

Gotta push my main Lord through all those armies and re-capture the settlement to the east in 5 turns or I fail the ritual. It's going to be tough.
 

Diancecht

Member
One of the other clans are already halfway through Vortex domination. I have no money to intervene. Is this save basically done? Do they win the game if they reach 100% ?
 
The Vortex tier requirements jump up a lot each time, so I wouldn't sweat an enemy's progress too much at the half-way mark. You still have plenty of time to either slow them down, or speed yourself up.
What do people who love total war but know nothing about warhammer think of this?
Are you concerned about not knowing what's going on? It's pretty straightforward after the tutorials, and you can look up info on anything at almost any time.

You don't need a deep knowledge of Warhammer to play or anything. It's still Total War, though do note that Total Warhammer is a lot more focused on heroes and magicks and powerful beasts vs. historical Total War's meatbag armies. It's a lot more RPG-like than any of the previous games.

Personally, I'd say the Total Warhammer series (definitely 1, and 2 seems pretty good so far too) is the best of Total Wars, if only because of how diverse the factions are. Every single one has a fundamentally unique playstyle and start that makes the campaign a whole new challenge. It gives a whooole lot of replayability.
Sändersson;250528946 said:
Can dark elves trade? If so how?
The same as any other (non-horde) faction: through diplomacy. I think the hotkey for that screen is "7".

Do note that you'll need a good relationship with your target, and a connection to one of their provinces, either by land or seaport. Generally, any faction you've got a non-aggression pact with will be amicable towards trade.
 
If Skrolk wasn't an active lord on the campaign map you won't have received him. He'll likely have been wounded in a battle. Same thing happened to me when I confederated with Clan Mors.

How are people finding the Vortex component of the campaign? Ever since I found out you that you have to win a slightly skewed battle if the AI reaches the final rite before you, it killed any sense of urgency to compete in that race. I guess it's a nice story component but they should make it more worthwhile to do the rites first and offer another campaign mode for people who just want the traditional victory conditions.


:/ damn i wanted skrolk , guess i'll reload.
the last battle was kinda easy for me with the lizardmen, the buff you get after defeating the skaven army are enough to help you hold the line that + HP regen .
 

karnage10

Banned
Do you suggest the game for someone that tries the total war series for the first time?
Also, is it GPU heavy? Is there someone with a gtx 970 that can tell me if he can achieve 60fps?

This game is great if you want to start the total war series. IMO any total war (with the exception of the first 2) is a good point to jump in.
The main problem with total war for a newbie is that the tutorial is "bad", so you will probably lose your first campaign when you are discovering the mechanics. Remember to use the dificulties slider to easy if normal is too hard. All the dificulty levels do are bonuses /penalties for you and the AI.


Kinda been dark on this game, hope this isn't a dumb question.

I'm playing as DE, and currently dealing with the Norsca. Suffice to say, their army composition is alot like vanilla TWW1, which is to say they build basically all missile cav and trolls, and some useless infantry that routes to my Darkshards easily. My question is: If I buy the Norsca DLC, will that open up the options for the AI? Fighting mostly missile cav is kind of tiresome once you know how to deal with it.

According to CA Norsca new roster was made with the budget from the marketing division, so they used the DLC team to make it for warhammer 1 since 2 was almost done. Norsca will be integrated "soon" after the launch of the new mortal empires campaign

Should I start on easy if I'm new to the series?

IMO the location where you start is more important then the difficulty setting. If you are comfortable around strategy games i think a normal difficulty start with an easy faction is the best way to ease into the game.
Just so you know the difficulty only changes bonuses, penalties and the AI aggressiveness towards you
 
In my Clan Mors campaign, the first ritual worked out quite well. Encroaching Chaos forces razed three enemy settlements (including an enemy ritual site) on the way to my channeling settlement. This let me conquer the enemy's main province largely uncontested, with their one army wandering in the jungle unable to catch my Skaven.

Things were less good when the two island-borne Elf factions declared war on me at the same time. Now I'm going out to conquer their worthless provinces, to beat back an enemy that will no doubt return. If I don't annihilate them now they'll just come back again or confederate... I guess it's a good opportunity for food, though.
 
I have a 970, hits 60 easily

How? I have an R9 390, which is pretty equivalent to a 970 and I am struggling with high settings and getting pretty severe framedrops.

Note I am also playing at 900p which makes it even more strange. 8gb of ram and a decent cpu (I5-6600).
 

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
How? I have an R9 390, which is pretty equivalent to a 970 and I am struggling with high settings and getting pretty severe framedrops.

Note I am also playing at 900p which makes it even more strange. 8gb of ram and a decent cpu (I5-6600).

weird i have an i5-6600k also, but overclocked to 4.4

What settings you got?
 
weird i have an i5-6600k also, but overclocked to 4.4

What settings you got?

Don't have a K variant though, so it is unclocked I believe.

Pretty much everything set to high, shadows to med. AA set to FXAA, reflections off, DoF off. Unit size to large, portraits to 2D as well.

No blood and gore as it's not available.

I am getting I guess 30-40 FPS with some higher counts at times, but Malekith's chillwind even causes framedrops not to mention multiple spells and Skaven stuff going on.
 
Can someone explain to me how Teclis's "shield of saphery" spells work. Are they really "on" at all times? Like the "life boom" says its active while casting does it mean that everytime I cast any spell all of my units get it?
 

Dmax3901

Member
I made a big mistake starting the third ritual with both my armies away from my main base fighting other Lizardmen. I was doing fine just a few turns ago. Now I got the following either in my base or on their way:

1x High Elf intervention
1x Skaven Intervention
1x Skaven other army.
1x Vampire army.
1x Norsca army
2x Chaos armies



Also just went bankrupt by loosing 3 settlements and being raided. This is probably the biggest turn-around I've seen so far in a TW Warhammer match. Slightly salty because I just lost an important city defending against the chaos armies. Odds were highly against me, but thanks to the walls and some micromanaging I managed to come out on top unit-wise as well as kill their leader. However some of their units had managed to get into the city and capture the victory point. No matter what I did I couldn't get my units in there. They were either stopped by other minor enemy units or just not obeying my orders/clicks at all. Kind of had that in other matches as well where it feels like units aren't doing what I want them to. Especially noticble with the ranged skinks, not sure if the skirmish (run away from melee) and fire at will modes are part of the problem.

Gotta push my main Lord through all those armies and re-capture the settlement to the east in 5 turns or I fail the ritual. It's going to be tough.

I had this EXACT same situation happen last night. Started the third ritual, chaos armies popped up RIGHT next to my capital, high level Dark Elf intervention army RIGHT next to my capital and a stacked Skaven army (unknown neutral faction, not sure if this was an intervention too) RIGHT next to my capital. I was already dealing with a couple of rebelling provinces that had cropped up after confederating a neighbouring Lizardmen faction and my most powerful armies were waaay to the south.

So what I did was create as many throwaway armies as possible trying to buy time and whittle them down, the Dark Elf army absolutely obliterated them in seconds with like two hydras, three dragons etc. I was beginning to get a little angry at how OP intervention armies can be but eventually I got Mazdamundi back to the capital with his army and my army full of dinosaurs and a third backup army, managed to retake my capital (which had been razed), took out the Dark Elves, Skaven and the remaining Chaos forces. It was like 1:30am at this point lol.

So, pretty intense challenge but I ended up being able to overcome it. Pretty cool.
 
Finished a campaign as the Lizardmen. In the final battle I'm pretty sure my general managed to kill himself with a spell, but my trusty soldiers pulled it out of the bag.

Wonder what it'd be like in co op...
 
Damn lizard men took one of my cities. The army comp they have is just slightly too powerful for me right now but my garrison army defended really well. They lost a lot of expensive units. They have a stegadon and some crocodile soldiers that cut through my rats. I'm overhauling my armies right now cause I got access to some higher tier units. Also holy shit at the Hell-Pit abomination. One of my garrison armies had one. So gross. So awesome. really well done on the units.
 
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