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Total War Warhammer 2 |OT| Of Mice and Ratmen
- Thread starter karnage10
- Start date
I think you have to buy the first game if you want to play the races from that game?
For Lizardmen, there's a post-battle option to "Sacrifice to Sotek," which provides a 5-turn status with "+100 experience."
What does that mean? That for five turns my units' experience is +100 what it would be otherwise, and then their experience drops 100 points after the status expires? Or that all future experience earned while the buff is active is enhanced by +100? Or does choosing the sacrifice grant a permanent +100 to experience?
What does that mean? That for five turns my units' experience is +100 what it would be otherwise, and then their experience drops 100 points after the status expires? Or that all future experience earned while the buff is active is enhanced by +100? Or does choosing the sacrifice grant a permanent +100 to experience?
ohyescoolgreat
Neo Member
I haven't played lizardmen but I imagine it equates to the skills that select heroes get which passively increase the experience bar for a unit each turn. Except in this case only for 5 turns.
So I've entered the end game on my Skrolk campaign and the AI has started sending me doom stacks from every corner of the map. It's a little odd that the Order of the Flame who has 1 settlement according to their diplomacy screen has 2 full stacks on my island with a 3rd crossing the ocean to get to me. Wouldn't be total war without their famous AI I guess..
This has also forced me to upgrade a couple of my cheap clanrat /plaguemonk armies to a higher tier selection but on the plus side I've found some fun combos. 3 Catapults and 3 Lightning cannons with the presence of an upgraded Warplock Engineer will decimate most armies before they reach your lines particularly when you bog down their front line with spawned units of clanrats causing their units to bunch up.
Pyros_Eien
Member
Slaves are just terrible stats, they have 10melee attack/defense and like 15damage, while Clanrats are similar to tier1 units from other races(20ish MD/MA and 20-25dmg). But they don't break that easily actually, they have relatively good leadership and I have both leadership aura bonuses on my lord so as long as I'm somewhere in range, they don't break too much. And when they break, it's like, one group breaks, but because they're expendables, they don't inflict a leadership loss to other units(unlike normal units which often create chain routes), so one slave unit runs away but the other 3-10 are still there surrounding stuff, and then I just run them back in.
It's kinda like zombies which don't break at all, but can't kill shit most of the time, but I find you can leverage the wall of garbage units a lot better with the good summons you get as skaven than if you were to stack 19zombies as VC.
Clanrats are when you have more money and want better stats, but honestly doesn't make much of a difference, the only noticeable difference is clanrats with shields against ranged units, but even then I don't think it's worth the price.
Mind you I've started rebuilding stronger armies now to get some autoresolves in and clear some of the more annoying stuff, but I still have some slave stacks around, still beat lizard and human armies at turn 120, the only annoying ones was the rite spawned one that has like 12dinos, this one I fought with my strong stack cause no way I beat them with slaves, it's just too many of them, 2-3 is fine but more than that gets messy.
Just need to stop the last ritual once the elves get there while I spend 50turns doing mine to win the campaign, I tried to stop rank4 with an intervention army to buy some time but as usual it was garbage and got killed by 2 half stacks somehow, as did the other intervention army and the 2 chaos stacks. I'm about to kill Hexaotl and I'll be close enough to Dark elf boy to prevent him from doing the next ritual but Tyrion is way too far, takes like 15turns probably to sail from Lustria to Ulthuan.
I had to get my balance of power significantly higher (roughly 3/4), and their attitude towards me over 230. Easiest way for that, I found, was to throw 30,000 gold gifts at them every turn after I beelined to the 200% mine income research upgrade.
Pyros_Eien
Member
There's still some fuckery with confederating at times though. In my skaven playthrough around turn 30 or so, I could confederate with clan skrye, but didn't cause I wasn't in the right position to defend their lands and stuff. Anyway I let it go, then say 15turns later I'm in a better position, check again, they don't want anymore. K whatever I'll keep trying. After that they never accepted a confederation until I finally destroyed them around turn 110. I had over 470 attitude, gifted them like 60k gold, then stopped gifting cause I thought maybe they didn't want to confederate cause they were too strong(they had a pretty good ranking even though all they had was 2 settlements and 3crappy armies) but near the end they were amongst the weakest faction and still wouldn't.
I probably would have killed them earlier if I knew it was gonna go like that.
Currently playing Mazdamundi on very hard. I had to give it a few attempts before I got off good.
Originally I dealt with Skeggi, but this allowed the Skavens to the north to take over several settlements and also become best friends with Dark Elves.
So I started over and went straight for the skaven settlements and it turned out great. I needed to win some difficulty fights, but would've had to do so against the Norscans anyway. I've now almost removed the Norscans and thanks to them I also own the 2 settlements the new world settlers originally owned.
What I really liked so far is 1) the difficulty in the campaign map. I hope it continues. In TW:W1 I often felt you needed to overcome an initial challenge and then you basically steamrolled everyone until Archon came along. Kinda boring, especially with the armies that needed to take over a ridiculous amount of settlements to win.
2) The AI seem to use less cheats in combats. In particular I often found the ai in TW:W1 to have a ridiculous staying-power, not fleeing unless you really overpowered them. That's certainly not my experience so far.
I enjoy playing the Lizardmen because the saurus warriors a great anvils, while the skinks have a superb movement speed, allowing for easy flanks and the terror dinosaurs increases the likelihood of units fleeing.
What I also like is that the Lizardmen actually reminds me of the actual board game models. I'm a Lizardmen player myself and honestly, pitting a saurus warrior unit against Skaven clanrats always results in an absolute blood bath, favoring the lizards.
The one thing I dislike is how the ai seem to have a very large amount of ammunition on their ranged units. Javelin skinks have a few shots, but the damn barbarian horsemen seem to have an bag of infinity throwing axes.
Thinking you can outwait any shootouts will not go your way
So,far I'm enjoying the game and I'm here excited about the combined map!
Originally I dealt with Skeggi, but this allowed the Skavens to the north to take over several settlements and also become best friends with Dark Elves.
So I started over and went straight for the skaven settlements and it turned out great. I needed to win some difficulty fights, but would've had to do so against the Norscans anyway. I've now almost removed the Norscans and thanks to them I also own the 2 settlements the new world settlers originally owned.
What I really liked so far is 1) the difficulty in the campaign map. I hope it continues. In TW:W1 I often felt you needed to overcome an initial challenge and then you basically steamrolled everyone until Archon came along. Kinda boring, especially with the armies that needed to take over a ridiculous amount of settlements to win.
2) The AI seem to use less cheats in combats. In particular I often found the ai in TW:W1 to have a ridiculous staying-power, not fleeing unless you really overpowered them. That's certainly not my experience so far.
I enjoy playing the Lizardmen because the saurus warriors a great anvils, while the skinks have a superb movement speed, allowing for easy flanks and the terror dinosaurs increases the likelihood of units fleeing.
What I also like is that the Lizardmen actually reminds me of the actual board game models. I'm a Lizardmen player myself and honestly, pitting a saurus warrior unit against Skaven clanrats always results in an absolute blood bath, favoring the lizards.
The one thing I dislike is how the ai seem to have a very large amount of ammunition on their ranged units. Javelin skinks have a few shots, but the damn barbarian horsemen seem to have an bag of infinity throwing axes.
Thinking you can outwait any shootouts will not go your way
So,far I'm enjoying the game and I'm here excited about the combined map!
I am still laughably bad at this game. In my first non-tutorial-ed battle I fought a fair sized Skeggi army as Mazdamundi and lost my lord pretty quickly to a pack of warhounds and won the battle by the skin of my teeth.
Thought I had positioned well, getting the majority of my forces on a sound vantage point, hiding cavalry in the forests to the side...I think I just don't understand unit fundamentals and so lack the understanding to react and just wait for things to pan out and cross my fingers...
Thought I had positioned well, getting the majority of my forces on a sound vantage point, hiding cavalry in the forests to the side...I think I just don't understand unit fundamentals and so lack the understanding to react and just wait for things to pan out and cross my fingers...
Camp Freddie
Member
I've been playing TW games since Shogun (1) and I still mess up often. When stuff goes wrong, it can go wrong very quickly.
General Total War rules are:
1) Don't let your general get killed
2) Don't let your general get killed
3) Use cheap trash units to pin the enemy down
4) Make sure you have some units protecting your archers/artillery (especially in Warhammer, since the enemy cavalry AI is ruthless about flanking you.
5) Try and keep a 'reserve force' that can respond to any problems
6) Try to keep some cavalry as an anti-archer/artillery squad, but beware of spearmen (the AI is not very good at following rules 4 and 5, so you can exploit this if you are patient)
7) The pause and 'half-speed' buttons are a general's best friend
Other than that, there are lots of different tactics that can work.
ISee
Member
Reaction is indeed needed. Some mistakes I see people do regularly and done myself in total Warhammer 1. I'm also not claiming that this are pro tips or useable in every battle. Just some general things I learned over time, that work for me.
1. Use flying units, skirmishers or cavalry to get rid of enemy artillery. At least keep artillery occupied till your forces arrive. But don't just rush blindly forward, this is very much a game of bait and switch.
2. Use your own archers/ranged units to get rid of enemy archers/ranged skirmishers and flying units first, because no matter how good your melee infantry is, being engaged in melee combat and getting shot will always get them killed. After you finished off enemy flyers, skirmishers, ranged units don't hesitate to fire at enemy troops that are bound in combat with your own troops, they will take much more damage then your own guys (not true for breath attacks).
3. Spears/Halberds are great against cavalry and monsters but a bit less effective against infantry. Keep that in mind when attacking/defending. Two handed swords, poison and dual weapon troops are good against other infantry. High armour protect Vs damage and shields are great Vs arrows.
4. Use cavalry, monsters, chariots actively. Pull them out of combat and let them recharge over and over again.
5. Leadership is king. Break it and you will win. It's absolutely worth it to take the extra time to flank or move into the rear before attacking. The bonuse damage to enemy moral is insane.
6. Use the pause/slow button. Don't stay still and watch. Just watching will cost you battles.
7. If you have the ranged advantage then take the high ground. Protect your ranged units from cavalry and flyers by protecting your flanks/rear.
Thanks for the tips. I will definitely try to keep these in mind. I think the main thing I didn't see coming was the warhounds somehow breaking through to my Lord and one group taking him down.
I didn't really realise I could slow game time, but this sounds like the most important thing to me. Life comes at you pretty fast etc. etc.
I am looking forward to improving as I haven't really taken the time to do so in a Total War game since I was a teenager. Is there a way for me to save and upload replays somewhere to get feedback?
I didn't really realise I could slow game time, but this sounds like the most important thing to me. Life comes at you pretty fast etc. etc.
I am looking forward to improving as I haven't really taken the time to do so in a Total War game since I was a teenager. Is there a way for me to save and upload replays somewhere to get feedback?
Forerunner
Member
I just failed my first play through as HE at around turn 50. Everything was going great. However, I did the first part of the ritual and I didnt know it made Chaos spawn. I had two large armies, but I just declared war a few turns before. So my main army was fighting them and then Chaos came. So I tried to start pulling back, but they already starting stacking cities and I lost my other leader/army. Im annoyed because the ritual fucked me over. If I knew it would have spawned Chaos I would have never declared war before that.
Live and learn. Ill probably do Dark Elves now.
Live and learn. Ill probably do Dark Elves now.
About leadership:
It modifies depending on what's going on. Check the leadership often and get an understanding of how it works. In general this will affect the leadership:
Flanking a unit.
Being in the rear of a unit.
General dead/fled.
Nearby units fleeing.
Stronger and faster nearby enemies.
Having taken too many casualties.
Fear.
Terror may prompt units to flee.
So have something to pin the enemy, flank them and then charge in with a monster. See if you can get a good chain reaction going.
The_Endgamer
Member
I want to make/buy a decent PC just for this game. Love me some more Warhammer lore. Playable Lizardmen are the best.
LurkerPrime
Member
Does anyone know what makes an enemy army rout seemingly at once? Like, as Skaven that's how I've won most of my battles, but I'm still not clear on what's triggering it.
Like, generally I entangle everyone with my meat shields and slowly wittle down their forces with reinforcements from below, or if my army is particularly lucky, a spellcaster, ranged units, or artillery. But at a certain point, with the power scale about even, the enemy forces rout entirely and the battle ends in victory. Although my forces are numerous, they are far from deadly...
I'm assuming it's due to all of the leadership loss and the sheer number of enemies remaining, but it happens so suddenly, and randomly, that I'm starting to feel like it's a bug. (The AI really isn't prepared for all of the skaven units.)
Like, generally I entangle everyone with my meat shields and slowly wittle down their forces with reinforcements from below, or if my army is particularly lucky, a spellcaster, ranged units, or artillery. But at a certain point, with the power scale about even, the enemy forces rout entirely and the battle ends in victory. Although my forces are numerous, they are far from deadly...
I'm assuming it's due to all of the leadership loss and the sheer number of enemies remaining, but it happens so suddenly, and randomly, that I'm starting to feel like it's a bug. (The AI really isn't prepared for all of the skaven units.)
PeskyToaster
Member
I think theres an additional morale hit when multiple units are panicking to simulate how a rout occurs at first in pockets then a general rout. Nobody wants to be the last man holding the line while everyone else escapes.
MurkyZebra2417
Member
Had some of the most epic battles ever for me in all Total War games (playing everone since Medieveal2). Holy shit that late game Skaven events are no joke:
Close defeat, only City guards could not hold off 8000 Skaven.
But I got revenge versus the second Skaven Wave, with one of my heroes present at town:
Some battle impressions:
Both battles lastet 30-40 minutes, holy shit that was epic. There was literally no end to the Skaven.
Close defeat, only City guards could not hold off 8000 Skaven.
But I got revenge versus the second Skaven Wave, with one of my heroes present at town:
Some battle impressions:
Both battles lastet 30-40 minutes, holy shit that was epic. There was literally no end to the Skaven.
clockworkinyou
Banned
First TW game ever played, and I'm absolutely hooked.
Started an easy campaign with Tyrion. This is like crack.
Is there any way to see a recap of a battle (like just to watch) if I choose auto-resolve?
Good site for tips?
Started an easy campaign with Tyrion. This is like crack.
Is there any way to see a recap of a battle (like just to watch) if I choose auto-resolve?
Good site for tips?
oh right, I forgot about the expendable rule. Slaves might indeed be a bit too cost-effective, I wonder how this affects multiplayer
the only time I've seen something like this was early in a Chaos campaign with Suneater against a far larger Norsca army that chain-routed all at once, due to terror I presume. I usually try to kill the enemy general fairly early in a battle and that often does the trick as well
XChainfireX
Member
Why not reload a save a few turns back?
LurkerPrime
Member
Clanrats with shields would be worth it, I think; none of the slaverats have them, and they can be easily focused down by ranged targets. But in terms of upkeep, yeah, no, Skaven have +15% upkeep per lord, so they really cannot afford any extra expenses. And after that first extra lord, you're already dangerously close to negative income (so it's basically expand--not just survive--or die).
The faction has only been viable for me because of how inexpensive slaves are. Without overwhelming numbers they simply cannot compete--their units are too weak. Clan Mors in particular is facing hostiles from all angles, and without an immediate response they get conquered in like three ways. Then, they can only really make trade partners based on who hates their target more, which is key to making their economy work.
The thing I'm realising is that like the Vampire Counts, spreading corruption is really key for Skaven. It will lock down areas for them and weaken nearby (future) targets. With that in mind the fact that 90% of factions are instrinically opposed to their existence, and at war with them, makes more sense.
Like, their corruption is the most dangerous because the osmosis spread can be as high as +4 per province, and I'm pretty sure it has a higher order penalty than the other types of corruption. (Unless they just rebalanced it in the sequel to actually make it possible to bother the AI.)
There is no actual battle to see in autoresolve. Autoresolve is just your calculated strength vs. the enemy's, with some kind of mathematic simulation to determine losses.
Also worth noting that the balance of power pre-battle isn't always close to the actual "strength" of each side. e.g. Wood Elves seem overtuned in defense and Skaven severely undertuned. In general, though, you will probably be able to achieve better results... but it's a good way to save time.
But for HE, Tyrion starts on the island surrounded by friendly elves, right? I'd just focus on befriending, trading, and locking down the area. Your only real threat will be Norsca in the North and East, and any Dark Elf factions (particularly Cult of Pleasure and Naggarond.)
Hmm, yeah, it might be a cascade rout. (Not sure if anyone has fear/terror in my army, but eh.) It's just the timing seems really weird because by all appearances they're still doing well in the battle.
It's just like, at a certain point all of their leadership just drains and the battle ends. I'll need to pay closer attention to their leadership stats to see what's going on, I guess.
The faction has only been viable for me because of how inexpensive slaves are. Without overwhelming numbers they simply cannot compete--their units are too weak. Clan Mors in particular is facing hostiles from all angles, and without an immediate response they get conquered in like three ways. Then, they can only really make trade partners based on who hates their target more, which is key to making their economy work.
The thing I'm realising is that like the Vampire Counts, spreading corruption is really key for Skaven. It will lock down areas for them and weaken nearby (future) targets. With that in mind the fact that 90% of factions are instrinically opposed to their existence, and at war with them, makes more sense.
Like, their corruption is the most dangerous because the osmosis spread can be as high as +4 per province, and I'm pretty sure it has a higher order penalty than the other types of corruption. (Unless they just rebalanced it in the sequel to actually make it possible to bother the AI.)
There is no actual battle to see in autoresolve. Autoresolve is just your calculated strength vs. the enemy's, with some kind of mathematic simulation to determine losses.
Also worth noting that the balance of power pre-battle isn't always close to the actual "strength" of each side. e.g. Wood Elves seem overtuned in defense and Skaven severely undertuned. In general, though, you will probably be able to achieve better results... but it's a good way to save time.
But for HE, Tyrion starts on the island surrounded by friendly elves, right? I'd just focus on befriending, trading, and locking down the area. Your only real threat will be Norsca in the North and East, and any Dark Elf factions (particularly Cult of Pleasure and Naggarond.)
Hmm, yeah, it might be a cascade rout. (Not sure if anyone has fear/terror in my army, but eh.) It's just the timing seems really weird because by all appearances they're still doing well in the battle.
It's just like, at a certain point all of their leadership just drains and the battle ends. I'll need to pay closer attention to their leadership stats to see what's going on, I guess.
ThisIsMyDogKyle
Banned
I wanted a fantasy Total War game for a looooong time so this and the first are easily my favorite in the series.
Forerunner
Member
I only keep one save. Plus I'm so use to playing with ironman settings from other games.
At some amount of army losses all surviving units get massive penalties to their moral, even the ones that are locally doing just fine and winning, which is probably what you saw because it's pretty sudden. It's there to make sure you don't have to grind out already won games like when they just have a lord left and you don't have anything to kill it quickly.
Read the mortal empires part of the OP. CA has said it will be released in "weeks not months".
When the battle gets too one sided all units in the battlefield get something like -100 leadership penalty making every unit rout. One way to predict when it is going to happen is to look at the bar on the upper part of the screen; if you get it to fill mostly your color the enemy will rout.
If you want to learn the mechanics see party elite videos on youtube, he explains everything much better then i can.
If you want a specific question answered post here we can help.
I am a total war fan and i knew 0 about warhammer fantasy. My only exposure to warhammer previously of this game was when i searched googled for more info on warhammer 40k from dawn of war and misclicked on the fantasy part of the franchise.
For me warhammer is one of the best total wars if not the best. I play total war for the battles and for me the last few total wars good too many campaign mechanics and too few "epic" battles.
Warhammer has a simpler campaign when compared to attila however that allows for faster campaign to set battles quickly.
Where warhammer shines is in the roster; historic tittles normally every factions is relatively similar to each other, there is difference between playing rome, carthage and bactria however they all have the same anvil and hammer tactic. In warhammer the factions are so different that each campaign makes completely new challenges.
A few examples
- brettonia has the best cavalry in game but has some of the worst infantry in the game
- the vampire counts have 0 ranged units but have the best flankers
- Dwarfs have almost no flankers but have some of the highest armour and best ranged units in the game
- beastmen are very quick with a really high charge bonus but their lack of armour and melee defense makes them very vulnerable to meat grinder situations
TheVampire
Banned
So hows the graphics in this game?
Man, Lizardmen absolutely crush Skaven. I'm playing on Hard and just held off a 2,000-unit Skaven ambush with only 120 Blessed Saurus Warriors. I was down to my last ~30 units by the end but they never broke.
Eventually I'm going to have to do a Skaven playthrough, and I'm probably going to hate it.
The only real threat the Skaven have posed so far is when they rout and my out of control units blindly break formation and chase them... that's almost lost me a few battles.
Eventually I'm going to have to do a Skaven playthrough, and I'm probably going to hate it.
The only real threat the Skaven have posed so far is when they rout and my out of control units blindly break formation and chase them... that's almost lost me a few battles.
ISee
Member
Finished the vortex campaign as DE yesterday and started a new campaign with HE. It is so easy to build up a strong trade goods economy with their political influence trait. Their superior archer range and strong infantry also makes them a real powerhouse on the battlefield. DE were already strong, but HE are unstoppable and a lot of fun to play, still DE have hydras and s cool slave mechanism. I've also done some quick battles with skaven and lizardmen. All races feel very unique. Bravo.
Sändersson
Member
So so, sometimes it looks pretty good from a particular angle, but look a bit deeper and I honestly think it looks very dated. Animations are also a hit and miss, sometimes a dragons charge to unit looks awesome, but sometimes they seem kinda bugged. Its hard to explain, but you will see.
Really hoped for a bigger step up from the first game, but oh well. Its a great game anyways.
clockworkinyou
Banned
Shameful admission time -
17 hours in, I didn't know there was a pause button : (
I was always too busy clicking around trying to get my Ellyrian Reavers to stop standing still or my Ellyrian Archers to stop chasing those withdrawn baddies.
Man, I love this game. Hope the first one goes on sale soon so I can add to this.
it is essentially the same as the first but with a better lightening system. CA made a blog post showing it. While the graphics are the "same" the game runs much better then the first.
I haven't played with single entity units much on warhammer 2 but on warhammer 1 the main disadvantage of a single entity unit is the lack of damage. A single entity unit hits only 20-30 troops for each attack while a >60 model unit can make many more attacks. This is rather important when chasing routing units- a high count model unit with high speed can wipe a routing unit in seconds while a single entity unit might take minutes to be able to shatter a routing unit.
So what does this mean in pratice? If you want your flankers to wipe artillery/archers cavalry is much better then dragons; if you want to punch through a weak part of the enemy line then dragons will be much better then the cavalry.
Some weird stuff that was not intuitive for me when i started playing total war:
- Flying units have only 1 speed, they don't run. The 2nd speed only makes them resistant to stagger animations.
- When recruiting units you can click on the pin to compare unit information
- you can use "lock group" to move the army in formattion
- you can use ALT+ left click->drag to move a group of units in the same positions
- you can group your line and the do a single right click to have your line charge (this sometimes doesn't work well)
- Your spearmen/halberd need to stay still to have the defence against charge bonus
- you can use guard on archers if you want to direct their fire but don't have them follow that unit when it routs/moves
single entity units have the big advantage of not losing combat strenght while taking damage. You can seriously reduce the combat strenght of a unit of blood knights for example with one cannon volley by taking out a bunch of models, meanwhile a mammoth will lose a tiny slice of their health at most and is still at 100% combat strenght even near death
and monsters deal a huge amount of are of effect damage as well. I charged halberds griffin knights into a mammoth at 1/3 health recently that was already in combat with another unit, looked away for a few seconds, turned my attention back to them and half the fricking griffin knights were dead
that said, don't waste expensive units on hunting war machines or archers. Literally any unit can beat them with ease, use harpies or hounds or cheap cav
clockworkinyou
Banned
Thanks karnage, that's helpful!
Forerunner
Member
Decided to go HE again, but this time with Teclis. Even though it says that initial start is hard, I'm having an easier time than with Tyrion.
LurkerPrime
Member
I'm giving up my second campaign as Clan Mors on Very Hard. The High Elves are too far ahead, and untouchable from Clan Mors' awful starting position. Worse, the undead remaining on their continent are eventually going to attack; the only expansion area to the West, where Clan Pestilens used to be, is overrun by one dominant Lizardmen faction; and a two-settlement High Elven faction on the fringe of that Western continent has continually harassed me all game with their three armies from across the sea periodically. Also all of my trade deals are falling apart as the victory progress diplo modifier runs its course, ruining my economy.
All of these threats and setbacks have locked down my armies, and made any forward progress impossible.
If I did two things differently, it would be to focus on spreading corruption, and to eliminate the island High Elves. It would weaken neighbouring settlements and lock down the Southern coast, making conquest much easier in the long run.
All of these threats and setbacks have locked down my armies, and made any forward progress impossible.
If I did two things differently, it would be to focus on spreading corruption, and to eliminate the island High Elves. It would weaken neighbouring settlements and lock down the Southern coast, making conquest much easier in the long run.
Pyros_Eien
Member
I finished my first vortex campaign. Very hard as Lord Skrolk, 186 turns, 125 combats fought manually while 133 autoresolved(most of them in the later part of the game). Was a very fun run, especially the end was a lot more tense than the usual campaigns. Steam says 64hours played, although I was alt tabbed for a few hours, but still that was a lot of playing for this campaign compared to some others, having to manually fight so many fights slowed it down a lot, but was enjoyable. I got pretty adept at killing high elf high tier stacks with dragons and stuff with just walled minor settlement garrisons.
I didn't do any rituals until the other factions were on their 4th, but caught up to them and beat them anyway, no other factions completed 5th.
I chained all my rituals one after the other and during these 60 turns I prevented Hexoatl from completing their 4th(and forced them to relocate on the southeast island by completly elimininating them from Lustria), I let Naggarond complete their 4th since they were trade partners only for them to backstab me as soon as they did, I sailed across to Ulthuan to interupt the high elf 5th ritual 1turn before it finished(only had about a turn of leeway so it was close), then sailed back to my capital to handle the the start of my 5th ritual, then sailed all the way north to interupt Naggarond 5th ritual who was 7turns earlier than mine(got there 3turns before it was ending, so close too) and eventually won 3turns before the high elf completed their 2nd attempt at 5th.
Overall I really liked how the Skaven played, I abused slave armies+menace below+plague casters A LOT, in fact until turn 130 or so I only had one good army and 7 slave armies, but once I started doing the rituals and stuff and seeing the intervention composition and the armies other factions were sending at me, I decided to upgrade some(I also lost 3 armies in one turn during the 3rd ritual, so that prompted me to rebuild my stuff with better units). Ended with 7armies total, 2elite armies(one on defense, one on attack), 3mid tier armies(a few stormvermins, some gutter runners with poison and some clanrats, with some heroes mixed in) and 2 slave armies. This gave me enough flexibility that I could fight on multiple fronts to defeat interventions, ritual event armies and still push Hexoatl out of Lustria while interupting High Elves across the sea. During the last few turns I was bleeding 8k per turn from raising some emergency army to deal with the 5th ritual stuff, but for the most part I was at 100k+ gold since turn 80 or 100 I forgot. Also never dipped below medium food, with many turns being capped, with every region using the food commandment other than the few high income ones(vampire coast, north jungle, the starting area and the Chupatl one next to it and that was it, everything else food)
The early game was rough, but surprisingly unlike vanilla campaigns, it was tense even into the lategame. The ritual thing made sure I didn't have time to slowly but surely conquer everything and win. Although from what I understand it's easy to not lose anyway because of the final battle, but my goal was preventing other factions from reaching that point instead of cheesing it because of superior army composition and overpowered lord.
Not gonna bother with conquest objective since it'll just take forever and at this point I don't see how I'd lose anyway.
I didn't do any rituals until the other factions were on their 4th, but caught up to them and beat them anyway, no other factions completed 5th.
I chained all my rituals one after the other and during these 60 turns I prevented Hexoatl from completing their 4th(and forced them to relocate on the southeast island by completly elimininating them from Lustria), I let Naggarond complete their 4th since they were trade partners only for them to backstab me as soon as they did, I sailed across to Ulthuan to interupt the high elf 5th ritual 1turn before it finished(only had about a turn of leeway so it was close), then sailed back to my capital to handle the the start of my 5th ritual, then sailed all the way north to interupt Naggarond 5th ritual who was 7turns earlier than mine(got there 3turns before it was ending, so close too) and eventually won 3turns before the high elf completed their 2nd attempt at 5th.
Overall I really liked how the Skaven played, I abused slave armies+menace below+plague casters A LOT, in fact until turn 130 or so I only had one good army and 7 slave armies, but once I started doing the rituals and stuff and seeing the intervention composition and the armies other factions were sending at me, I decided to upgrade some(I also lost 3 armies in one turn during the 3rd ritual, so that prompted me to rebuild my stuff with better units). Ended with 7armies total, 2elite armies(one on defense, one on attack), 3mid tier armies(a few stormvermins, some gutter runners with poison and some clanrats, with some heroes mixed in) and 2 slave armies. This gave me enough flexibility that I could fight on multiple fronts to defeat interventions, ritual event armies and still push Hexoatl out of Lustria while interupting High Elves across the sea. During the last few turns I was bleeding 8k per turn from raising some emergency army to deal with the 5th ritual stuff, but for the most part I was at 100k+ gold since turn 80 or 100 I forgot. Also never dipped below medium food, with many turns being capped, with every region using the food commandment other than the few high income ones(vampire coast, north jungle, the starting area and the Chupatl one next to it and that was it, everything else food)
The early game was rough, but surprisingly unlike vanilla campaigns, it was tense even into the lategame. The ritual thing made sure I didn't have time to slowly but surely conquer everything and win. Although from what I understand it's easy to not lose anyway because of the final battle, but my goal was preventing other factions from reaching that point instead of cheesing it because of superior army composition and overpowered lord.
Not gonna bother with conquest objective since it'll just take forever and at this point I don't see how I'd lose anyway.
Fakeknowledge
Member
Thanks for the replies, I bought it. I had a quick play around with the dark elves but i probably won't have time to delve into it properly for a week or two.
They seem cool though, I'll do my first campaign as them.
They seem cool though, I'll do my first campaign as them.
how do you beat armies that not only have more units, but also things like star dragons or lvl 30 lords, with just the garrison? You are far outnumbered and outclassed
Pyros_Eien
Member
I don't win all the time, but I'll cripple them so much they basically can't do anything anymore, because if they attack another settlement I'll win easily(sometimes in autoresolve even) and whatever crappy army I have in range will mop them up. There were exceptions, but generally speaking a single high elf endgame stack would take heavy losses to take even a minor settlement. Add a slave army in the settlements and it'd be an almost guaranteed victory unless it was 2 full high elf stacks, and again I'd be able to cripple one of the army at least, making it easier after that.
Oh and obviously, you need lvl 3 walls on everything. The AI is still bad at siege battles, on either side, so that's what you want, on open ground you'll get slaughtered and I didn't bother fighting these unless it was against smaller forces.
The main tricks are, spawn menace below on artillery asap(high elves armies always has 1 or more eagle claw bolt throwers), preferably the one closest to a melee unit. You'll kill it, then the clanrats get demolished by whatever they sent after it. Then use Warp explosion on the clanrats to take out a few more units. This serves multiple purposes, it removes one of the highest threat with shitty units, artillery, as well one of their ways to take out the doors, it delays the siege progress by getting a lot of units to turn around and focus on your unit and the warp explosion, if done properly, can take a whole other unit in the process. You just eliminated 2 units with nothing. Against some other races, like Skaven or Lizardmen, you can actually take out several units with this strategy. The best I've done was take out 1artillery, 2full units of tier1 melee and half of a light cav stack with the combo against a chaos army(marauders and other garbage units mind you).
Second step, spawn clan rats from Menace below when the cooldown for warp explosion isn't up to attack whatever is attacking your doors(kroxigors/rat ogres/trolls mostly, high elves don't do it as much and I barely fought any dark elves). Alternatively for the high elves case, spawn them on units going up ladders. These are free attacks since the AI won't turn around to fight, and you'll generally get a free unit kill with this due to the high damage from rear attacks+leadership damage.
For whatever gets up the walls, spam the warlock spell, that's the only spell you have and it's best use when stuff is stacked on the walls. Can use it so it only target the enemy units by putting half on the wall, half below. It's important to use it almost on cooldown since you'll be wasting casts otherwise due to the cd and the lack of other spells to use the winds.
Put clanrats on the walls, ranged units on the ground. Ranged units are terrible on the walls since they don't fire most of the time. Put the catapult closer than the starting area, so it can fire early and more often. The catapult will often get 200-300kills and the constant leadership losses it inflicts makes a lot of units route, which is deadly as long as you have tower control. Great at killing all that cav high elves love even though they can't use it in sieges.
For the dragons, focus fire with all ranged units while spawning a clanrat on them to occupy them. Dragons are surprisingly squishy and the AI doesn't use their breath very efficiently which is the main reason to bring them imo. If you have your 4gutterrunners fighting it, even if one is in melee with the dragon, you'll break it without taking much damage. Multiple dragons is where it gets messy but they'll often spread them so just throw some clanrats at them to delay it while you shoot them down. Throw your rat ogres at them too if they're available. This works for lizardmen dinos too, or mazdamundi himself. Anything large, focus fire with all ranged units to take down quick.
Those fights are long grindfests, and buying additional uses of menace below is basically vital. 8 is about the right number, more if you can afford it but you'll sometimes lose morale before you get to use them all. Any less and you'll run out before the end of the fight, which is a waste since you could have killed more units with them.
Ordinaryundone
Member
The CPU absolutely doesn't understand how to properly build a Skaven army, it's always like a full 20 stack of clan rats or something stupid like that. They are super fun when you actually make use of their speciality units and spellcasters.
heh, sounds like to developed siege battle defenses with Skaven to an art form
I only played one, which got me an heroic victory by spamming the warlock spell on a bottleneck of lots of cav units trying to get through the gate. I haven't used the warp explosion ability yet, comboing it with menace below is actually pretty ingenious
I'm used to ignoring siege battles completely, since they ran like crap for me in TW:W1 (they somehow fixed that in game 2). I guess the secret to success on higher difficulties with Skaven is fighting most of the battles yourself, even the hopeless ones, since you're up against impossible opposition on the campaign map. In game 1, I autoresolved every battle that seemed extremely one-sided or had acceptable projected win chances, and all siege battle. Fighting nearly every minor battle yourself is just too grindy for me
Pyros_Eien
Member
Well I autoresolved everything that had good odds too, or even average odds when using slave armies since either way I'd just lose like 10slave units or whatever and rebuild them easily since you can recruit them locally everywhere in 1 turn.
But yeah I fought a lot of it manually, a lot more than usual where I usually use autoresolve wins everywhere. I did a lot of siege defenses, I almost always fought them if I had walls, because of how much of an advantage you have. Even if you lose, you stop the invasion dead in its tracks, giving you time to move armies to go clean up.
The last ritual has, as expected, a lot of armies spawning. I fought 4 manual siege defenses in a row on their turn when they spawned, all against completely skewed odds. Took a long time. I lost all 4(including a bullshit one where a PART of a unit somehow capped my base while the rest of the unit was at the gates), but by the time my next turn was up, there was basically nothing threatening left and I just ran my 2 armies through everything with autoresolves.
This isn't new but the AI was a lot more keen on doing sieges in this game, or maybe it's cause of rats low autoresolve scores. But even back in the first game when I played dwarfs for my first VH playthroughs, I stopped 2 full stacks of the final chaos invasion with an unmanned siege battle(was a major settlement so better garrison however).
Wait what? I have defended a few sieges with just level 3 walls garrison and it's impossible against full mid to high-end stacks. I am playing HE, btw.
They just have too many units.
Pyros_Eien
Member
I just did a very long post, although it's skaven specific. I'd argue skaven might be the best siege defenders faction because of menace below letting you take out artillery and archers if needed and being able to respond to any unforeseen issue anywhere on the map.
Still every faction is good at crippling the enemy in siege defense, even if you're not going to win. The goal isn't really to kill everything with your garrison but slowing them down heavily so they have to either recover or leave is huge. For the event spawned armies that don't do either, they'll have to attack the next settlement with half their forces, and even if they win, they'll have to attack the next one with basically nothing.
It's a multi-layered defense, and mostly you're buying time for your army to force march back where you need them to be, or you're softening up the enemy armies so you win the fights more easily. Obviously you can't activate the last ritual with no one close and expect to defend all the endgame stacks with just a garrison, but you can inflict severe losses. Even when it's several armies, you can generally kill over half of the first one, more depending on the matchups. If you autoresolve though they'll lose like 5guys if that.