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[ISee]

Can someone answer a questin about cavalry for me:

If I tell them to just ride through an enemy unit, will they take increased damage? Will they still charge through them and deal damage?

Or do I have to doubleclick the enemy for a proper charge and then have the cavalry turn 180° around so not to take damage?

Moving through still seems to work for killing fleeing units put not anymore for 'normal' combat. I let them charge and than micro them out, but maybe I'm wrong here...

 

[4Tran]

Can someone answer a question about cavalry for me:

If I tell them to just ride through an enemy unit, will they take increased damage? Will they still charge through them and deal damage?

Or do I have to doubleclick the enemy for a proper charge and then have the cavalry turn 180° around so not to take damage?

I think that you have to give an attack order in order to get the charge bonus. And if you try to pull through in the middle of a fight, you'll take increased damage. Chariots are a different weight category than cavalry, so they're the only units that you should be trying to pull through with.

 

[Merino]

So I'm a bit surprised by the difference between Hard and Very Hard difficulty level.

Tried paying Dwarves on Very Hard yesterday and despite reloading save games I kept getting swamped by Greenskins and their Waaaaagh's and I just can't keep the Silver Road somewhat save.

Then tried a new campaign on Hard and by turn 50 I had already pacified the Greenskins almost entirely. There was hardly a real challenge along the way.

Going to try Very Hard again but could use some tips for this difficulty level!

 

[Goldfishking]

76 hours in, all 5 campaigns finished on normal.

Absolutely loving this game, gonna start a new campaign on hard now .

 

[Lorcain]

I finished the short campaign with Chaos last night after making some early missteps while I figured out the horde mechanic. It's kind of liberating not to have to worry about defending and maintaining settlements. But I missed that feeling of territorial progression, and having a growing line of supply and safe places to regen health.

The Chaos units are really well done and fun to play. There's a lot of attention to detail in the art, sound, and lore of their units and leaders. Tactically they're a powerhouse, even without ranged units. By the time I was able to field an all Chosen and Dragon Ogre army, they became almost unstoppable, even for 2-3 armies at once.

I made the mistake of trying to head south right at the start of the campaign thinking that I could sustain a push towards the Empire, ignoring the Norsca tribes. I figured what better way to learn the horde mechanic than to jump right into the fire? I'm not sure why I didn't anticipate this, but my 2 armies were absolutely mobbed by every nearby faction and their heroes. And with no friendly area to encamp and regen health, I had to pull back north.

I spent the next 100 turns conquering the Norsca tribes and completing character quests, which really helped in developing 2 of my hordes. On that note, I learned that each Chaos horde (army) has to develop their own buildings, which requires consistent success and positive revenue through sacking. While Chaos armies share tech, they don't share recruitment of units like settlements within provinces do, or globally with traditional factions. In fact, Chaos armies suffer attrition if they are in the same province. Talk about everyone for themselves!

You can bite the bullet and accept attrition to setup a multiple army siege or attack, it just requires more coordination than playing a regular faction. Essentially you swoop in the other army on the turn of the attack to avoid attrition.

After defeating the Empire, I sent my armies back to Norsca to recover and reload, and then we're heading to take on the Dwarves.

 

[bonesmccoy]

I'm tired of playing as the Dwarfs. Tactically they are the most boring army I've played with in a TW game.

Spoiler

AKA I haven't figured out how to fight effectively with the Dwarfs.

Maybe that changes once I get some gyrocopters going, but right now each battle is basically a punching contest until someone breaks.

I think it's time to leave them for a bit and move on to Orcs, VCs and Chaos.

 

[Camp Freddie]

The AI movement cheating is a bit annoying. They don't stop after razing and always use forced march to continue their rampage.
I think it's be fine if only the AI had to stop after razing a settlement. That way they essentially only get to do it once before I can attack them, assuming I'm reasonably sensible with army placement.

On normal, I think it's okay since you can lure enemies out with ambush bait, but that's easier said than done. You need to get a second lord in the same location and within range of the enemy. That takes at least one turn for recruiting a shitlord and andother turn to set up the ambush, by which time 2 or 3 of your settlements could be razed if you didn't spot the arsehole quickly.

I worry that on (very) hard, I will end up spending all your time chasing raiders.
I'll probably install the homeland movement speed boost mod to compensate.

There's a mod that reduces the AI cash that they spend on hero actions, which sounds like a great idea. I don''t really want to disable agents, but the AI's cheating cashflow combined with impossibly high-level agents can be unfair and (more importantly) unfun. You just can't afford to spam agent assassinations as a counter.

In my current game it looks like I'll never get to head north and crush chaos. Every time I'm ready, some faction declares war, or (more commonly) an alliance goes all fucking World War 1 on me. Weiseland just decided that my one-province vassal that doesn't even border them needed a kicking.
Nuln is a fucking monster settlement too. Level 5 and max-level walls. It also shelters armies that can "raze and return" a Reikland settlement. I'm baiting them every time the army gets too big, while my main armies force march back home. Hopefully Karl and Balthazar can smash through from the south, destroying the minor settlements and then we all meet up to finish off Nuln.
On the plus side, being so close to Reikland means that Nuln becomes a testing ground for the top-tier units I've just unlocked. Lets find out what the fuck a Luminark is!

 

[Palmer_v1]

I'm tired of playing as the Dwarfs. Tactically they are the most boring army I've played with in a TW game.

Spoiler

AKA I haven't figured out how to fight effectively with the Dwarfs.

Maybe that changes once I get some gyrocopters going, but right now each battle is basically a punching contest until someone breaks.

I think it's time to leave them for a bit and move on to Orcs, VCs and Chaos.

Honestly, a lot of Dwarf battles for me were the same:

Use superior ranged artillery to force enemies to come to me
Blast them with ranged units who then skirmish behind my lines
Brace for the charge with my infantry
Use a spare infantry unit or two to flank around an edge and charge into the rear of engaged units
Charge Heroes into any section I feel like I can route
Move Ranged Infantry to kill any of their flankers with focus fire, or murder their ranged infantry
Watch their army slowly crumble and flee

Probably the most important thing to know is that your ranged units are better than every other ranged unit in the game. I typically went with about 12 melee units, including my lords, with 8 units mixed between artillery, ranged, flying.

There were battles where just the volume of fire from 8 quarrelers made multiple units flee before even making it into combat. Even if they get engaged, unless it's an elite anti-infantry style unit, your quarrelers can just tank it for a lot longer than you would expect.

 

[ant_]

This is my first Total War game and I'm completely overwhelmed - but want to get into it and really play through it. Anyone have any basic tips or links you could recommend?

 

[Easton Dark]

This is my first Total War game and I'm completely overwhelmed - but want to get into it and really play through it. Anyone have any basic tips or links you could recommend?

I'll give you five tips that can be applied to every faction.

1. Have at least one army ready for every potential front. You have no idea when another faction will declare war on you, so it's better to be prepared than be overwhelmed.

For example, as Vampire Counts you have enemies on all sides - except the east, which is a mountain range that no one can cross. So three armies is usually enough. But be careful, for every army you raise (ie every lord you recruit to raise an army) your army upkeep costs raise 2% across the board. So don't expand too quickly if you don't have the cash.

2. Check diplomacy every turn. This is the best way to reduce the number of fronts you have, meaning you'll need fewer armies. Factions will be more likely to agree to your proposals if they like you, and most factions hate each other at the start, so improve your relations by: fighting the same enemies, trading with one another, gifting money, and generally being non-belligerent towards them.

For example, as Empire, if you can secure an alliance with Bretonnia, you wont need an army for the west.

3. Watch your income. With no income, you wont be able to build the military buildings, the walls, or the support structures that will ensure you're relevant in the late game. Also your soldiers will start deserting if you go bankrupt. Increase your income by brokering trade agreements in the diplomacy menu (make sure you have buildings that make resources to sell) or each race also has buildings that just naturally give a substantial income.

For example, the Empire has weaving houses that can be built in every settlement. The level 1 weaving house gives 250 gold per turn. Multiply that by how many settlements you have, and also know that you can upgrade them for more gold per turn. Even just the base 250 gold from one weaving house will be enough to support the upkeep for 2 units of swordsmen. Combine that with the taxes from your cities that you're already getting, and you'll be able to field multiple armies in no time.

4. Learn which units can beat others. You don't field the same type of armies for fighting the Greenskins as you would the dwarves, because one of those armies has lots of armored units, and one does not.

For example, if I'm dwarves, I would recruit lots of quarrelers (crossbowmen) to fight the orcs because the orcs have limited armor available and quarrelers fire faster than other ranged units. If I was fighting other dwarves, who are all armored, I'd recruit thunderers (riflemen) because rifles have armor piercing.

5. Auto-resolve is unfair to the AI. Abuse it if you have issues fighting. As opposed to fighting battles manually, auto-resolve seems to calculate the victor almost exclusively on the number of units fielded, so tactics go out the window in deciding who wins.

For example, the Vampire Counts have the best auto-resolve armies because skeletons are counted very highly in the auto-resolve calculation and they're incredibly cheap and quick to raise an army of.

 

[ant_]

I'll give you five tips that can be applied to every faction.

1. Have at least one army ready for every potential front. You have no idea when another faction will declare war on you, so it's better to be prepared than be overwhelmed.

For example, as Vampire Counts you have enemies on all sides - except the east, which is a mountain range that no one can cross. So three armies is usually enough. But be careful, for every army you raise (ie every lord you recruit to raise an army) your army upkeep costs raise 2% across the board. So don't expand too quickly if you don't have the cash.

2. Check diplomacy every turn. This is the best way to reduce the number of fronts you have, meaning you'll need fewer armies. Factions will be more likely to agree to your proposals if they like you, and most factions hate each other at the start, so improve your relations by: fighting the same enemies, trading with one another, gifting money, and generally being non-belligerent towards them.

For example, as Empire, if you can secure an alliance with Bretonnia, you wont need an army for the west.

3. Watch your income. With no income, you wont be able to build the military buildings, the walls, or the support structures that will ensure you're relevant in the late game. Also your soldiers will start deserting if you go bankrupt. Increase your income by brokering trade agreements in the diplomacy menu (make sure you have buildings that make resources to sell) or each race also has buildings that just naturally give a substantial income.

For example, the Empire has weaving houses that can be built in every settlement. The level 1 weaving house gives 250 gold per turn. Multiply that by how many settlements you have, and also know that you can upgrade them for more gold per turn. Even just the base 250 gold from one weaving house will be enough to support the upkeep for 2 units of swordsmen. Combine that with the taxes from your cities that you're already getting, and you'll be able to field multiple armies in no time.

4. Learn which units can beat others. You don't field the same type of armies for fighting the Greenskins as you would the dwarves, because one of those armies has lots of armored units, and one does not.

For example, if I'm dwarves, I would recruit lots of quarrelers (crossbowmen) to fight the orcs because the orcs have limited armor available and quarrelers fire faster than other ranged units. If I was fighting other dwarves, who are all armored, I'd recruit thunderers (riflemen) because rifles have armor piercing.

5. Auto-resolve is unfair to the AI. Abuse it if you have issues fighting. As opposed to fighting battles manually, auto-resolve seems to calculate the victor almost exclusively on the number of units fielded, so tactics go out the window in deciding who wins.

For example, the Vampire Counts have the best auto-resolve armies because skeletons are counted very highly in the auto-resolve calculation and they're incredibly cheap and quick to raise an army of.

Thank you, this is a good start.

I find myself being most overwhelmed with managing my base, diplomacy, and movement. Not being sure what I should build/how to increase certain things (something akin to happiness in my cities?)/where to expand

 

[Easton Dark]

I find myself being most overwhelmed with managing my base, diplomacy, and movement. Not being sure what I should build/how to increase certain things (something akin to happiness in my cities?)/where to expand

Happiness you don't have to worry too much about. It's much more simple than previous total wars.

The only things that happiness relates to is that once a settlement reaches -100 happiness, there's a revolt with a medium sized army that will besiege and maybe destroy or take the settlement. They're easy for an actual army to defeat, and so you largely don't have to worry about them, because you'll know well in advance if a rebellion will happen. The game even tells you how many turns until a revolt if you hover over the happiness icon.

If you want to increase happiness, options are: some buildings increase happiness, stationing armies in towns (military presence), a hero type you can recruit increases happiness if deployed in a region, and some random events can increase happiness in all regions for a time. In a pinch, you can also suspend taxes, because taxes are a constant -4 to happiness. I sometimes do that when conquering new lands because I wouldn't be making much money from them anyway for a few turns.

As for what you should build, it depends on what you need. Better military buildings if you need better units (or want to try new ones for fun), economic ones if you need money, walls if you need a settlement to be really defended, growth if you need growth, or happiness ones if you need happiness. That's pretty much the five types.

What's "growth"? Well:

The only thing to really consider with building (because you can always demolish and build something else if you need to) is that there are 5 tiers of buildings.

The tier that you have access to build relates to the level of that particular town, which is always the building in the upper left of the build menu. You can upgrade towns when you get the appropriate amount of "Population surplus" (ie: to build a level 5 town, you need 5 surplus).

Think of the population surplus as the limiter that stops factions from having access to their best units straight away. Growth gets you surplus faster.

Provincial capitals always have the ability to reach level 5, while the secondary towns in the same province can only ever reach level 3. That means for the higher tier buildings, you must build them in your capital. For example, The Empire can build its best infantry building in any town because the infantry building only levels up to 3. However, the artillery building levels up to 5, so if you want the best artillery units, you need to build it in the provincial capital.

 

[Lorcain]

Another important tip is that local unit recruitment draws from all the settlements within a province, not just the settlement your army is near. There's definitely some strategy to how you build your infrastructure to support growth and the economy, while still having the ability to crank out an army quickly.

Another nice feature to TWW is that settlements automatically build their own garrisons as you level up the left most building. Building a guard house and a gate will also add to the garrison. We used to have to do this manually.

 

[Houndi101]

Anyone get the feeling that the goblin spearman morale might be bugged?
They never seem to break when fighting against them...

 

[Pyros_Eien]

Anyone get the feeling that the goblin spearman morale might be bugged?
They never seem to break when fighting against them...

Are you playing on legendary maybe? Difficulty gives a leadership bonus to the enemy(and a malus to yours), so they'll break less often. I haven't noticed though, goblins break in seconds when confronted by about anything that kills some of their units. They sometimes even break before they reach melee range from just a few good artillery shots and will definitely break with a bunch of archers firing at them as they approach. They do come back a few seconds later though, that's the greenskins "strength", they break quickly but reform quickly also, especially goblins. Also timing a lord skill to give them temporary leadership can make them not break.

 

[Camp Freddie]

I find myself being most overwhelmed with managing my base, diplomacy, and movement. Not being sure what I should build/how to increase certain things (something akin to happiness in my cities?)/where to expand

There are some good tips above.

I think it's important to have a goal and a core territory. For the Empire, develop Reikland and Marienburg as your core, and defend them.
Everywhere else can focus on money generation. Cash is almost always the limiting factor. Use Reikland as a recruiting centre. Don't bother with military buildings elsewhere, until your empire gets very big (e.g. after you take over the Vampire provinces). If you start running out of cash, it's because you have too many armies (though you'll probably think you don't have enough!), so either disband some units or go conquering/sacking. Your main armies should always be fighting and not just defending in settlements.
Don't worry too much about defending every settlement you conquer. Your goal is to stop the enemy armies before they do too much damage, rather than mounting a perfect defence. Don't waste loads of cash upgrading settlements that you can't defend.
If you end up with a settlement that you won't be able to defend easily (e.g. if you get dragged into war with Brettonian-type factions), sacking it and asking for peace is a good idea. Don't claim territory that you can't afford to defend.

Diplomacy is important, but you don't have that much actual control. Just try to be peaceful (and if possible get trade deals) with everyone except the faction you want to fight.
Don't try to fight on more than one front at a time. If some arsehole on the other side of your empire decides to start a war, consider making peace with your current enemy so you can focus on the new threat. If you win a couple of fights, the AI will want a peace deal - you don't need to crush them into dust.
Be wary of joining alliances with factions that hate other factions that you don't want to fight.
Most importantly, you will make mistakes and get dragged into wars you don't want. You just have to try and deal with it.
PRO-TIP: AI factions like to fight one war at a time too. If two nearby factions are fighting (or if they just hate each other more than they hate you), just leave them to it. They are unlikely to declare war on you while they are already in a war themselves.


A good build guide is for Altdorf to have the general cavalry building, magic college, armoury, gunsmith and port. Basically, if a building can reach Tier 5 build it in Altdorf. Don't bother with the cathedral though. Put that in Marienburg or some other province.
One Reikland minor settlement has pastures and can get a cavalry bonus support structure. Build a Weaving house for more cash.
The other minor settlement can get the infantry building (once you get it to Tier 3, demolish the infantry building in Altdorf), a weaving house and the Reikland knights building (at Tier 3).
I never go above Tier 1 farms/pastures and demolish them when all settlements have reached maximum tier.
Build taverns if happiness/turn is negative. Build cathedrals if corruption is becoming a problem. Build walls on Tier 3 border settlements that are more than a turn's march away from your armies.

All my other provinces have weaving houses, trade buildings (where available) and enough taverns to keep people happy. I usually build/upgrade walls once the settlements have grown to Tier 3 and put a cathedral in the main city.

Have one lord as a recruiter, ferrying the latest military units from Reikland to the Emperor and Balthasar. That hero can also act as a defensive lord to stop smaller enemy armies from raiding Reikland.

Lastly, your plans will not survive contact with the enemy and your Empire will feel about as stable as the Baratheon's in Game of Thrones. This is normal.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

My Wishlist for patches / DLC:


1) I want to have sieges back. Something is lost in not being able to attack/defend cities. I understand iconic special cities are too difficult to model, but could they make some generic castle / villages / keeps for each race that would be proper siegeable?

2) Skaven? Beastmen? Lizardmen? PLEASEEEEEE

3) Longer Campaign. Needs to be a lot longer. And bigger map.

4) I miss the family tree with marrying off princeses, new heirs and so on. The agents are lacking something.

 

[Palmer_v1]

My Wishlist for patches / DLC:


1) I want to have sieges back. Something is lost in not being able to attack/defend cities. I understand iconic special cities are too difficult to model, but could they make some generic castle / villages / keeps for each race that would be proper siegeable?

2) Skaven? Beastmen? Lizardmen? PLEASEEEEEE

3) Longer Campaign. Needs to be a lot longer. And bigger map.

4) I miss the family tree with marrying off princeses, new heirs and so on. The agents are lacking something.

I can't disagree with 2 or 3, and i think they'll be hand in hand. I'm not up on the Old World fluff, but any faction they can add that physically borders the current realm is quite likely. I was kinda hoping for Elves next, but I'm told their lands are actually pretty far away?

#4, I don't think is really possible, and I'm okay with that. It's not really how issues are resolved in this world, and it wouldn't even make sense due to the different races.

 

[4Tran]

Diplomacy is important, but you don't have that much actual control. Just try to be peaceful (and if possible get trade deals) with everyone except the faction you want to fight.
Don't try to fight on more than one front at a time. If some arsehole on the other side of your empire decides to start a war, consider making peace with your current enemy so you can focus on the new threat. If you win a couple of fights, the AI will want a peace deal - you don't need to crush them into dust.
Be wary of joining alliances with factions that hate other factions that you don't want to fight.
Most importantly, you will make mistakes and get dragged into wars you don't want. You just have to try and deal with it.
PRO-TIP: AI factions like to fight one war at a time too. If two nearby factions are fighting (or if they just hate each other more than they hate you), just leave them to it. They are unlikely to declare war on you while they are already in a war themselves.

Also, unless you're playing as the Greenskins, you should avoid making treaties with Orc and Goblin factions. You can't trade with them, and they make so many enemies that you'll only generate negative diplomacy with other factions. Besides, if they defeat their other neighbors, they'll turn on you anyways.

I can't disagree with 2 or 3, and i think they'll be hand in hand. I'm not up on the Old World fluff, but any faction they can add that physically borders the current realm is quite likely. I was kinda hoping for Elves next, but I'm told their lands are actually pretty far away?

The Wood Elf territory is in the game - it's the impassable forest to the east of Parravon. Brettonia is certain to be the first DLC faction, and the Beastmen can be put in without expanding the map. Kislev, Tilea, and Estalia could be made into playable factions, but of these only Kislev is likely to happen any time soon. Another possibility is that we can see sub-factions - like making Imperial Counties playable, or the different Orc tribes, Vampire bloodlines, Chaos gods, and so on.

Anything really big like, including the continents the Dark Elves and Lizardmen inhabit, will have to wait for the expandalones.

 

[Klyka]

My Wishlist for patches / DLC:


1) I want to have sieges back. Something is lost in not being able to attack/defend cities. I understand iconic special cities are too difficult to model, but could they make some generic castle / villages / keeps for each race that would be proper siegeable?

2) Skaven? Beastmen? Lizardmen? PLEASEEEEEE

3) Longer Campaign. Needs to be a lot longer. And bigger map.

4) I miss the family tree with marrying off princeses, new heirs and so on. The agents are lacking something.

Wait, uh, I am pretty sure I've been doing lots of sieges.

Wut?

 

[bonesmccoy]

Wait, uh, I am pretty sure I've been doing lots of sieges.

Wut?

He's talking about the 'Battle will be fought outside of the city' thing that TWW introduced.

I kind of miss being able to battle it in a ramshackle town like you can in Attila/Rome/Shogun. That was fun sometimes. More often though it made it really easy to cheese the AI and win sieges you really shouldn't have.

 

[Klyka]

He's talking about the 'Battle will be fought outside of the city' thing that TWW introduced.

I kind of miss being able to battle it in a ramshackle town like you can in Attila/Rome/Shogun. That was fun sometimes. More often though it made it really easy to cheese the AI and win sieges you really shouldn't have.

oooooh! that stuff!

Yeah ok.

 

[Ragnar Blackmane]

My Wishlist for patches / DLC:


1) I want to have sieges back. Something is lost in not being able to attack/defend cities. I understand iconic special cities are too difficult to model, but could they make some generic castle / villages / keeps for each race that would be proper siegeable?

2) Skaven? Beastmen? Lizardmen? PLEASEEEEEE

3) Longer Campaign. Needs to be a lot longer. And bigger map.

4) I miss the family tree with marrying off princeses, new heirs and so on. The agents are lacking something.

Want more sieges? Build walls in the smaller settlements ;P. I get where you are coming from, but this also a part of balancing, ensuring that pretty decent amount of garrison units you get with even the tier 1 garrison building (easily 12 units+) can't easily fend off larger armies by using houses and similar stuff as choke points. It's either that are a reduced number of garrison spawned units.

2) Skaven, Beastmen and Wood Elves are all part of the current map and I'm pretty sure we will get all three of them as DLC before long, they have to sell something to us after all in the 1 1/2 - 2 years till the "next part of the trilogy(/major map expansion)". Lizardmen and pretty much everything else are on an entire different continent/far off the current map and out of the scope of this game.

3) That's debatable IMO. Campaign length seems plenty fine to me and can vary alot with all the long victory conditions you will need to fulfill. I'd rather have CA introduce cutscenes for a campaign win, as the current "you won, congratz n' stuff" popup feels rather shallow.

4) And how is that going to work for Orks (which are literally oversized shrooms without any sort of family relations and that are only interested in war)? For dwarfs (with very low birth-rate, where someone doesn't become an adult before being 30+ years old and where marrying off a dwarf women to another race is entirely unthinkable)? For Chaos (where the concept of royalty, diplomacy or marriage doesn't really exist, the strongest warrior/leader/wizard takes it all and where most of the big-shot warriors are literally fused to their full-body plate armour)? Doesn't really make sense, especially considering that the whole campaign more or less happens in the span of months or a few years at best. The Empire has an expanded "office" tree as a replacement and does that job just fine IMO.

 

[RoyaleDuke]

The emperor desires more fucking STEAM TANKS BREH.

Bankruptcy be fucking damned.

STEAM TANKS: For when you really want to destroy the unclean.

I'm Emperor Motherfucking Steam Tank Patton Franz Karl.

BOW BEFORE MY MIGHTY STEAM TANK REGIMENT.

 

[FeD.nL]

I've put thirty hours into it so far. A lot more than I expected I would have at this point wih Overwatch also getting a lot of playtime. But I really haven't had this much fun with a TW game since the original Rome: TW. Just completed my dwarf campaign. Probably going to do Vampire Counts next but the amount of personality and the way battles play out due to magic is just incredibly refreshing. Glad to see this is doing well.

 

[PeskyToaster]

Yeah I kind of miss the feeling of running roughshod over a tiny garrison. It's fun to march your army through a small village.

 

[Jibbajabbawockky]

Huh... I'm maybe about 10 hours and 130 or so turns into my first Empire campaign and was looking forward to really facing a big challenge with the Chaos invasion. I was thinking it was going to be a huge pain in the ass like Atilla was when his hordes started coming after you in Atilla.

So I start beefing up my forces and making tons of military alliances with just about everyone to take on Chaos when a couple turns after they started attacking, I get a notification that their big bad leader guy is dead.

That's it? Really?

I'm enjoying the game despite not being much a Warhammer aficionado but I do feel like they stripped down quite a bit from previous TW games. Just basic things like formations not being in there irk me at times and make me want to go back to Atilla.

 

[Ragnar Blackmane]

So I start beefing up my forces and making tons of military alliances with just about everyone to take on Chaos when a couple turns after they started attacking, I get a notification that their big bad leader guy is dead.

That's it? Really?

You got lucky, really really lucky. And there's also an even larger invasion coming around turn 100 or so, you'll still get to have some fun.

 

[Rygar 8 Bit]

chaos invasion can get dicey if the armies in the north cant hold their own and start falling in me and my friends co op campaign right now we are having a war on 3 fronts and trying to push the chaos back while defending off the orcs and vampire counts its kinda tough every time you push the chaos out they will send a few small armies to mess with your provinces by spreading corruption and laying small sieges

 

[Unity2012]

General tips would be, expand slowly after securing your positions.

Every province, you want to build the income generating buildings, one or two growth building(in the entire province, not per region, you look for the regions that don't have 2 income based buildings like the ones that generate income+tradeable ressources), you turn on the growth commandment to help, and eventually as your 3rd building in every region but the capital, you put walls to make it easy to defend even if you're not here. For the income buildings, you want to upgrade them early. They take a while to pay off for the upgrade costs, so the earliest the better. Growth buildings on the other hand, in some cases aren't worth upgrading, depends on your plans.

Plan your army buildings. Anything that doesn't go higher than tier3, you probably want to put in the minor settlements in your main province instead of in your capital. That's cause you want to put as many of the tier4/5buildings in your capital, since that's the only place you can build them.

If there's a lot of buildings for armies, you want to make use of 2 different adjacent provinces. For example if you play Empire, you'd want to put Artillery and gun stuff in Nuln, while you put Cavalry in Altdorf and infantry stuff in one of the minor settlements around Altdorf(cause the infantry building caps at tier3 so no need to take place in Altdorf). You could also put Cav in Middenlands, but I find it's a bit exposed since it's so far north. Or you could put stuff in Marienburg since it's close but have to remember that one slot is dedicated to the port stuff.

Adjacent provinces to your starting one also often have special buildings for a specific unit(Nuln for Artillery, Middenlands for Cavalry in the empire example but it's similar with other races, Western Sylvania has beast building and the province north has skeleton building), so once you see that you might want to change your plans down the road.

But basically, you want a plan on how you're going to build the core of your empire, where you get all your tech buildings. Any military support building has to be built in the same province as military recruitement buildings for the units using it, so it's worth spending a few minutes figuring out how you're going to get your buildings at the start.

When building an army, there's a few things you want to consider.

If it's a defensive army, meant to stay garrisonned in defense to protect one of your fronts, then lower tier units suffice, since they'll fight with the garrison(do think of upgrading the garrisons though on these fronts). For example, a lord, 14-16basic melee infantry(skeletons, swordsmen, orcboys, warriors etc), and a bit of stronger units, ranged if available, is enough to defend most stuff and has a low cost. If you have level 2 defenses on every settlements though, these are rarely even needed.

If it's a main army, you want to give it at least one piece of artillery, to be able to siege settlements in one turn(instead of having to wait to build a ram). You also want to give it a fairly balanced range of units. General approximation of the army would be like 50% melee infantry, 25% ranged infantry, 25% cavalry/special units/siege. Your faction would change these numbers depending though, obviously you can't field 25% ranged infantry as VC, or as Dwarfs a higher % is probably better since they're so good at it.

If you don't like playing a lot of armies, you can instead decide to massively stack 1 or 2 armies with high tier units. This requires teching quickly in your buildings(for example you'd run more growth buildings in your capital instead of income, expanding quickly at first to get the income needed from other provinces, and then using a low tier defensive force until you're done teching up). These armies don't follow traditional balancing, this would for example be Karl Franz and his 19 steam tanks. These armies are stupidly strong, but obviously you lack mobility and flexibility if you only have one army, so you need to build smart around them. Defensive buildings everywhere is a must, slowly expanding. Also you'd want your lord to have Lightning Strike, to be able to pick his fight against other armies grouped together.

In terms of how to spec lords, other than Lightning Strike if you plan to focus on few armies, the generally best way to spec is to get the middle tree to buff your basic units. Now this has the downside of becoming useless later in the game quite often. If you buff your dwarf warriors via the tier 1 skill, by lategame you won't be fielding any warriors anymore and those 3 points don't do anything anymore. On the other hand, you get a massive benefit out of them early game since all your basic infantry is stronger than the enemy's(well unless they also speced into it but the AI does weird things). Exception to that is casters, as some do want spells first, as those will also benefit your army.

On casters, it's good to have one per army. Hire Heroes if you can't field a caster lord. Now pretty much all of them are useful to a point, however you want to focus on the buffing and debuffing spells. Damage spells are for the most part unimpressive, with the exception of the lore of death damage spells. Vortex spells look cool, but are often terrible in use. Also you pretty much never want to put 2points in a spell. It's only a small cooldown reduction for it, in pretty much every case the point is better used getting another spell even if you don't use often/at all, just in case.

On heroes, I'd recommend installing a mod to remove their offensive actions or massively tone them down, as they're extremely annoying otherwise. You want to hire a bunch to help you on the map. Hit buildings every turn to level them up if possible. If they critically fail an action, they'll be dead for a few turns but will come back. The best heroes for campaign map actions are the "spies" type. Witch Hunter/Banshee/Big Boss Gob, and to a lesser extent Engineers and Chaos Wizards. The first 3 have the exact same skill set(+15% assassination, reduced enemy hero action chances in the provinces, can block army, can destroy siege walls), Engineers have lower assassination chance but can destroy more walls and Chaos Wizards don't have the wall destruction but can still block armies.

Finally, on combat. Make extensive use of pausing if you're too slow at giving orders in real time. The general strategy is, get all your melee infantry in a long line, put them in a locked group(ctrl G or click the lock icon thing), then right click an enemy units. They'll all advance in line and attack the nearest unit. Double click to make them run, or select them and press R, but it'll reduce their vigour more so just walk until you're in artillery range. Put your cavalry in their own control groups and put them on the sides, so you can flank stuff. Make sure to run them ahead of the army on the sides, preferably in woods and stuff so they're hidden. You want to charge from the side or behind when your melee units start engaging the enemy. You also kinda want to micro them because you want to break out of melee after charging, so you can charge again, charge bonus is really what makes cav worth it. Use your ranged units to focus fire an enemy unit they all can shoot. If you're using guns, you can't fire at a unit that's directly behind one of your own, cause it'd hit your own units, so you need to position either on the high ground or flank them. Bow/Crossbow units don't have the same problem, although they might hit your units a bunch, but still should be fine. If the enemy has a lot of cavalry, they'll try to go for your artillery, leave a defensive units or two around your artillery, or withdraw your artillery if you can't defend it properly, better than losing it.

Hah, I feel you.

What helps IMO is getting one solid, single front line of shield units, preferably Ironbreakers and Longbeards (always take two or three, even in late game doomstacks, their staying power and buff is just that good), with a rather wide width (3-3 1/2, max 4 files/rows), shielded dwarfs have great armor and staying power, especially with the +12 melee attk/def lord upgrade, and don't really profit from long files, so use that.

That should mean that only cavalry and flying units get to flank you, unless you are terribly outnumbered. I use two great axe units on each flank, behind the front line and next to my quarellers (or rather their fallback position if there is no handy hill or slope around that allows for them to shoot over the heads of the front dwarfs straight away), Miners in the early game, then GA Warriors (who have better stats than GA Longbeards while being cheaper, ironically) and later Hammerers (though they are absolute priority targets for the AI's artillery, beware). In lieu of spearmen, Great Weapons are the best thing that dwarfs have against cavalry charges and for keeping the flanks save, particularly against heavily armoured late game cav. and monstrous flying thingies. Use them to intercept cavalry and anyone else who tries to flank when they charged into your lines. Miners are slightly faster than other dwarfs (besides Slayers), have armour-piercing and are expandable and can be aggressively used for intercepting and charging into cavalry for good effect.

Another thing I prefer to do is only having two Quareller units with shields, one on each flank (of the Quareller line), and the rest with great weapons. While not as good as Great Weapon Warriors, you want the extra damage and especially armor-piercing if they actually need to reinforce the front line and they are much, much better at dealing with anything big or armoured attacking them in the back rows (which, well, will be almost everytthing they'd have problems fighting back). If anything lightly armoured tries to flank you, just focus fire it with your quarellers and it will be dead very, very soon.

As far as deployment goes, always try to find a hill or mountain to place your army on top of, with your artillery (particularly direct line-of-sight firing cannons) and Thunderer's on top. Even a ridge might mean that you won't have to place those units in the front of your melee line and they will be able to keep pounding throughout the battle. Quarellers are fine camping behind your meele line at the same height though when the melee starts, they fire in an arc and you won't have friendly fire problems if you fire at targets at the opposite side of the combat line rather than targets directly in front of them, elevated positions are still preferable though.
If you are fighting seriously bad odds, move your whole army into a map corner, preferably with lots of flat open ground in front of it so you still get to use your ranged units, which will give the enemy 0 options to flank you.

I'll give you five tips that can be applied to every faction.

1. Have at least one army ready for every potential front. You have no idea when another faction will declare war on you, so it's better to be prepared than be overwhelmed.

For example, as Vampire Counts you have enemies on all sides - except the east, which is a mountain range that no one can cross. So three armies is usually enough. But be careful, for every army you raise (ie every lord you recruit to raise an army) your army upkeep costs raise 2% across the board. So don't expand too quickly if you don't have the cash.

2. Check diplomacy every turn. This is the best way to reduce the number of fronts you have, meaning you'll need fewer armies. Factions will be more likely to agree to your proposals if they like you, and most factions hate each other at the start, so improve your relations by: fighting the same enemies, trading with one another, gifting money, and generally being non-belligerent towards them.

For example, as Empire, if you can secure an alliance with Bretonnia, you wont need an army for the west.

3. Watch your income. With no income, you wont be able to build the military buildings, the walls, or the support structures that will ensure you're relevant in the late game. Also your soldiers will start deserting if you go bankrupt. Increase your income by brokering trade agreements in the diplomacy menu (make sure you have buildings that make resources to sell) or each race also has buildings that just naturally give a substantial income.

For example, the Empire has weaving houses that can be built in every settlement. The level 1 weaving house gives 250 gold per turn. Multiply that by how many settlements you have, and also know that you can upgrade them for more gold per turn. Even just the base 250 gold from one weaving house will be enough to support the upkeep for 2 units of swordsmen. Combine that with the taxes from your cities that you're already getting, and you'll be able to field multiple armies in no time.

4. Learn which units can beat others. You don't field the same type of armies for fighting the Greenskins as you would the dwarves, because one of those armies has lots of armored units, and one does not.

For example, if I'm dwarves, I would recruit lots of quarrelers (crossbowmen) to fight the orcs because the orcs have limited armor available and quarrelers fire faster than other ranged units. If I was fighting other dwarves, who are all armored, I'd recruit thunderers (riflemen) because rifles have armor piercing.

5. Auto-resolve is unfair to the AI. Abuse it if you have issues fighting. As opposed to fighting battles manually, auto-resolve seems to calculate the victor almost exclusively on the number of units fielded, so tactics go out the window in deciding who wins.

For example, the Vampire Counts have the best auto-resolve armies because skeletons are counted very highly in the auto-resolve calculation and they're incredibly cheap and quick to raise an army of.

Happiness you don't have to worry too much about. It's much more simple than previous total wars.

The only things that happiness relates to is that once a settlement reaches -100 happiness, there's a revolt with a medium sized army that will besiege and maybe destroy or take the settlement. They're easy for an actual army to defeat, and so you largely don't have to worry about them, because you'll know well in advance if a rebellion will happen. The game even tells you how many turns until a revolt if you hover over the happiness icon.

If you want to increase happiness, options are: some buildings increase happiness, stationing armies in towns (military presence), a hero type you can recruit increases happiness if deployed in a region, and some random events can increase happiness in all regions for a time. In a pinch, you can also suspend taxes, because taxes are a constant -4 to happiness. I sometimes do that when conquering new lands because I wouldn't be making much money from them anyway for a few turns.

As for what you should build, it depends on what you need. Better military buildings if you need better units (or want to try new ones for fun), economic ones if you need money, walls if you need a settlement to be really defended, growth if you need growth, or happiness ones if you need happiness. That's pretty much the five types.

What's "growth"? Well:

The only thing to really consider with building (because you can always demolish and build something else if you need to) is that there are 5 tiers of buildings.

The tier that you have access to build relates to the level of that particular town, which is always the building in the upper left of the build menu. You can upgrade towns when you get the appropriate amount of "Population surplus" (ie: to build a level 5 town, you need 5 surplus).

Think of the population surplus as the limiter that stops factions from having access to their best units straight away. Growth gets you surplus faster.

Provincial capitals always have the ability to reach level 5, while the secondary towns in the same province can only ever reach level 3. That means for the higher tier buildings, you must build them in your capital. For example, The Empire can build its best infantry building in any town because the infantry building only levels up to 3. However, the artillery building levels up to 5, so if you want the best artillery units, you need to build it in the provincial capital.

There are some good tips above.

I think it's important to have a goal and a core territory. For the Empire, develop Reikland and Marienburg as your core, and defend them.
Everywhere else can focus on money generation. Cash is almost always the limiting factor. Use Reikland as a recruiting centre. Don't bother with military buildings elsewhere, until your empire gets very big (e.g. after you take over the Vampire provinces). If you start running out of cash, it's because you have too many armies (though you'll probably think you don't have enough!), so either disband some units or go conquering/sacking. Your main armies should always be fighting and not just defending in settlements.
Don't worry too much about defending every settlement you conquer. Your goal is to stop the enemy armies before they do too much damage, rather than mounting a perfect defence. Don't waste loads of cash upgrading settlements that you can't defend.
If you end up with a settlement that you won't be able to defend easily (e.g. if you get dragged into war with Brettonian-type factions), sacking it and asking for peace is a good idea. Don't claim territory that you can't afford to defend.

Diplomacy is important, but you don't have that much actual control. Just try to be peaceful (and if possible get trade deals) with everyone except the faction you want to fight.
Don't try to fight on more than one front at a time. If some arsehole on the other side of your empire decides to start a war, consider making peace with your current enemy so you can focus on the new threat. If you win a couple of fights, the AI will want a peace deal - you don't need to crush them into dust.
Be wary of joining alliances with factions that hate other factions that you don't want to fight.
Most importantly, you will make mistakes and get dragged into wars you don't want. You just have to try and deal with it.
PRO-TIP: AI factions like to fight one war at a time too. If two nearby factions are fighting (or if they just hate each other more than they hate you), just leave them to it. They are unlikely to declare war on you while they are already in a war themselves.


A good build guide is for Altdorf to have the general cavalry building, magic college, armoury, gunsmith and port. Basically, if a building can reach Tier 5 build it in Altdorf. Don't bother with the cathedral though. Put that in Marienburg or some other province.
One Reikland minor settlement has pastures and can get a cavalry bonus support structure. Build a Weaving house for more cash.
The other minor settlement can get the infantry building (once you get it to Tier 3, demolish the infantry building in Altdorf), a weaving house and the Reikland knights building (at Tier 3).
I never go above Tier 1 farms/pastures and demolish them when all settlements have reached maximum tier.
Build taverns if happiness/turn is negative. Build cathedrals if corruption is becoming a problem. Build walls on Tier 3 border settlements that are more than a turn's march away from your armies.

All my other provinces have weaving houses, trade buildings (where available) and enough taverns to keep people happy. I usually build/upgrade walls once the settlements have grown to Tier 3 and put a cathedral in the main city.

Have one lord as a recruiter, ferrying the latest military units from Reikland to the Emperor and Balthasar. That hero can also act as a defensive lord to stop smaller enemy armies from raiding Reikland.

Lastly, your plans will not survive contact with the enemy and your Empire will feel about as stable as the Baratheon's in Game of Thrones. This is normal.

Amazing tips guys. Thank you. This should be posted in the main page.
I quoted all for anyone out there, like I was, loving the game but lost in gameplay-technicality. I printed these tips.
Thank you all posters above for taking the time to help.

 

[Granjinha]

I just finished a Dwarven campaign dominating half of the world map. I was totally stomping everything at the end lol when i broke my peace treaty with the vampires and began attacking, they became desperate and constantly tried to fix the relationships, begging for peace for consecutive turns, upping the value of money offered in each one to persuade me.

I didn't care. Destroyed every single one of them. :')

They are more of a slow-burn, you have to be careful with your moves thanks to the book of grudges, but man, great faction.

I'm pretty sure this is gonna end up being one of my favorite games of 2016.

 

[LProtag]

It's been a while since I've played a Total War game. I suck. Trying out the dwarves, keep messing something up and getting destroyed, haha.

 

[Lorcain]

This has become my favorite TW game. I've already played more hours than Rome and Medieval 2. I finished the Chaos long campaign last night. So much fun. 355 turns, 3 hordes developed (the legendary lords), 10 factions destroyed, and all tech researched. It was a hard start in the beginning, but the horde concept works really well mid to late game.

I become military allies with the Vampire Counts during my early conquest of the Empire. Much later in the campaign I allied with the Greenskins during my southern push to destroy the dwarves. The main part of the map from north of the desert to the ocean separating Norsca was a ruinous wasteland corrupted by Chaos and Vampires. It looked appropriately inhospitable and gloomy.

My plan at the start was to have 2 primary hordes with Archaon and Kholek, and to eventually develop a Sigvald horde. Unfortunately the AI had other plans and kept mobbing Kholek with armies and heroes early in the game. He spent most of the early game on the bench recovering. Prince Sigvald and Archaon became my main armies.

I envisioned Kholek leading an army of dragon ogres, but that never happened. He spent most of the game leading mauraders as the 3rd string army. In the end he had good units with Foresaken and Chaos Spawn.

Archaon and Prince Sigvald were truly forces of chaos and destruction by mid game. With them it was all about keeping the finances coming in through constant sieging and sacking. I learned early on that it's better to disband hurt chaos units and replace them with recruits than to try and heal them through encampment. Most of their units only take 1-2 turns to recruit, so it's much easier to sustain a horde through unit replacement versus unit healing.

 

[Jibbajabbawockky]

I feel like diplomacy is a bit more lenient here than in past TW games. At least, playing as the Empire now, I have so many military allies that its kind of absurd but it's also pretty awesome. I just remember it being pretty difficult in past TW games to establish and keep alliances going yet here my Empire campaign has me allied with almost every Dwarf and human faction and they're actually being helpful in terms of attacking war coordination targets.

Which is pretty awesome right now since I've got 3 full stack armies of my own plus some Brettonian, Dwarf and Kislev allies marching all over the Skaeling and Varg up north on their home turf right now. Just got done with some big Varg armies raiding a bunch of Kislev territories and my Empire northern territories and I just got fed up. Abandon my efforts on the Vampire Counts for now, then coordinate with my allies and march my biggest armies right into the Skaeling and Varg home territories, raiding, sacking and razing everything Skaeling and Varg I come across. Not going to stop until they're wiped out, then I can come down hard on the damn Vampire Counts. Meanwhile the Vampire Counts keep throwing money and peace treaty offers at me every turn since my Dwarf allies down south are kicking their ass and the Greenskins have a Waaagh going on that's headed right at the Vampires too. Feels good!

 

[Lorcain]

I feel like diplomacy is a bit more lenient here than in past TW games. At least, playing as the Empire now, I have so many military allies that its kind of absurd but it's also pretty awesome. I just remember it being pretty difficult in past TW games to establish and keep alliances going yet here my Empire campaign has me allied with almost every Dwarf and human faction and they're actually being helpful in terms of attacking war coordination targets.

Which is pretty awesome right now since I've got 3 full stack armies of my own plus some Brettonian, Dwarf and Kislev allies marching all over the Skaeling and Varg up north on their home turf right now. Just got done with some big Varg armies raiding a bunch of Kislev territories and my Empire northern territories and I just got fed up. Abandon my efforts on the Vampire Counts for now, then coordinate with my allies and march my biggest armies right into the Skaeling and Varg home territories, raiding, sacking and razing everything Skaeling and Varg I come across. Not going to stop until they're wiped out, then I can come down hard on the damn Vampire Counts. Meanwhile the Vampire Counts keep throwing money and peace treaty offers at me every turn since my Dwarf allies down south are kicking their ass and the Greenskins have a Waaagh going on that's headed right at the Vampires too. Feels good!

One of the strengths listed for the Empire is their diplomacy. That makes sense that you would be able to form a wide network of alliances. It will get interesting if/when some of your allies decide to declare war on each other and expect you to pick a side. And it will probably happen a few turns before Chaos arrives

I'm not certain if the AI can do this, but as a Chaos player I could "awaken" previously destroyed Norsca tribes. I don't know if that's still possible if you completely ruin Norsca, but if you happen to see northmen back in the game after your conquest, that's why. One of the Norsca tribes I awakened rebuilt to become a top 3 power.

 

[Bizazedo]

Story time.

So I am playing the Greenskins and doing well. 4th campaign of the game, haven't played Total War since the original Shogun, so basically a newb. I just was victorious with Empire, so Orks seemed like a nice change of pace.

Managed to confederate with the Bloody Spears and am slowly working down the Top Knotz. They had a big piece of territory and were the last Ork faction not annihilated or under my control.

I had been getting random warnings about Chaos, but whatever. Bretonnia and Kislev fucked them up on my Empire playthrough, so I wasn't stressed. I had so many buffers in the way, I figured I'd be fine.

The final Top Knotz settlement falls to my 2 armies + 2 WAAAGHS, Grimgor Ironhide has successfully moved his army over to former Bloody Spearz territory to begin an assault on the Vampire Counts with another army I built there when I start noticing...huh, lot of ruins around here. Hmmm....

Disaster. 4 Chaos armies come rampaging down Blackfire Pass. My northern province is mostly wrecked, but luckily they split in half. Two armies head towards the Border Princes and the remaining two, one of which is Kholek, start to slowly grind south into my vast holdings.

I send agents to slow them down and start moving my armies to meet them. Unfortunately, Top Knotz territory was huge, so sending the 2 WAAAGHS and 2 armies north is taking time. I also start shifting Grimgor Ironhide's army back over.

One of the WAAAGHS reaches them and gets thoroughly wrecked, but it and agents slow them down for the bulk of my forces to arrive. Grimgor approaches them from behind in Blackfire Pass and the two southern armies + the remaining WAAAGH approach.

So naturally they run. The two Chaos armies savage Grimgor Ironhide's army and breakout, beginning to flee north the way they came. The WAAAGH and the two regular armies chase and shockingly shreds Sigvald's army (YAY Agents blocking them) before chasing Kholek (each Chaos army was at half / 1/4 strength by this point).

Sarthorael the Ever Watcher and Archaon decide to return from wrecking the Border Princes at this point so I start drooling. Blackfire Pass is blocked, they cannot escape. My emergency 5th army by this point that I began building when I saw them coming has since completed and shifted to Blackfire so I lay into the Chaos armies with 2 1/2 Greenskin armies (with Giants) versus the two weakened Chaos armies.

The reinforcement position for one of the Chaos armies is BEHIND me, so I deploy my first army to light their ass up as soon as they enter the map and pin them in the corner. My second reinforcing army, with giants, intercepts their main force before it can plow into my rear. Archaon falls to Grimgor Ironhide personally and the world is saved with only a weakened Kholek somewhere north....

All hail the Orks.

 

[Ledsen]

Any people here who are curious about Warhammer Age of Sigmar (the tabletop game) after playing Total War? If so you might want to check out the wargaming thread here in community ot, or you can PM me and I'll help you get started!

 

[loki0wn]

I am having issues the Savage Orcs while as the green skins on Hard. Their army composition is usually a few savage orc Boyz, but the biggest issues I keep running into are the Savage orc boar boyz and the trolls, with a lot of arrer boyz as backup.

What would be good counter to these? My big'uns get swamped and are cut through like butter against them, same for my goblin spearmen.

 

[Lorcain]

I am having issues the Savage Orcs while as the green skins on Hard. Their army composition is usually a few savage orc Boyz, but the biggest issues I keep running into are the Savage orc boar boyz and the trolls, with a lot of arrer boyz as backup.

What would be good counter to these? My big'uns get swamped and are cut through like butter against them, same for my goblin spearmen.

You're not alone. Top Knots are a tough faction for me to fight too, especially if I give them time to expand and gain access to their better units. The AI is very competent creating a combined arms nightmare while fighting as a Top Knots army. They masterfully flank the rear and sides, while keeping their ranged units positioned correctly to constantly pressure your front line (reducing morale). It's a testament to the AI programmers, especially compared to their previous titles.

Savage Orcs have badass cavalry, melee, and their AI armies usually come loaded with ranged units too...that can melee. And they can spawn Waaaghs.

The best defense I've been able to consistently use against them is to rely on my own ranged units to focus fire on their cavalry units one at a time, or focus fire on their ranged units and break their morale. I'll place units on the side and rear to absorb their cavalry charges. I've also had success stopping their cavalry with my own, and then outflanking them (if I have enough cavalry).

Overall the auto-resolve AI still does a better job of fighting against Savage Orcs than I do. In battles where the numbers are even or I have more, the AI wins with less casualties than I do. I still get the job done on my own, but not as neatly as the AI can with auto-resolve. I do better when I have smaller forces, but I think that's how auto-resolve has always worked.

 

[Ragnar Blackmane]

Any people here who are curious about Warhammer Age of Sigmar (the tabletop game) after playing Total War? If so you might want to PM me and I'll help you get started!

HERESY!
That thing you speak of does not exist!

 

[johancruijff]

uh game's fairly easy but the agents spam is killing me

also the stack of doom from fuck nowhere

 

[Borman]

Fun stuff, a prototype that is quite like Total War(hammer)

Kind of anyway.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Is there some kind of secret to moving units around while they're engaging others in battle? Because, particularly in walled cities, units straight up don't move where I tell them to half of the time. Even flying monster units are affected... like they'll just sit there getting peppered by arrows rather than attacking anything, or worse move somewhere else entirely unrelated (I eventually just withdrew them).

Everything works fine at first, but once they actually, physically fight a unit it all goes to hell and they get progressively less responsive.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

I'm going to start a Greenskinz campaign and do a lot of damage.

 

[Gibbo]

Hey guys, how exactly do you stop enemy heroes from trying to assassinate my lords/heroes? My non legendary heroes are at level 5, going up against level 9-13 enemy heroes. The rate of success is far too low for me to do anything

 

[mkenyon]

Hey guys, how exactly do you stop enemy heroes from trying to assassinate my lords/heroes? My non legendary heroes are at level 5, going up against level 9-13 enemy heroes. The rate of success is far too low for me to do anything

Use throw-away units to bog them down.

 

[johancruijff]

am i dumb or i can't trade/gift settlements?

 

[Jibbajabbawockky]

am i dumb or i can't trade/gift settlements?

I don't think you can. Or, at least I haven't figured out a way to do so.

Its little things like that which kind of bug me. Little things like that which have been in plenty of past Total War games but for whatever reason aren't here. In this instance I wonder if it has to do with the limitation of certain factions being able to occupy only certain territories?

Kind of wish the tactical battles reflected the terrain of the campaign map too. No river crossing battles or anything and it seems like sieges are just limited to the city being pushed against one side of the map, so you can't surround the whole thing.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Watch out, pretty sure I discovered a repeatable CTD:
Don't swap units from far away (i.e. targetting a lord you need to move to) or else confirming the swap results in an instant CTD. At least, it has been for me as the Greenskins the two times I've tried it.

Because the game autosaves at the end of every turn, it's never a big deal, but it is a bit of a bummer nonetheless.

am i dumb or i can't trade/gift settlements?

Don't think so.

 

[Pyros_Eien]

Hey guys, how exactly do you stop enemy heroes from trying to assassinate my lords/heroes? My non legendary heroes are at level 5, going up against level 9-13 enemy heroes. The rate of success is far too low for me to do anything

Use a mod to reduce AI heroes spam/remove it entirely. Until they fix it at least, heroes are definitely dumb as hell.

The "legit" way is to recruit a bunch of the assassin specialized heroes(banshee, big boss gob, witch hunter and then for dwarfs/chaos they don't have a specialized so any of them that can get the +8%assassinate on the middle upgrade) asap and then send them to a weak enemy province and have them constantly hit the buildings. There's much better chances of success and less chances of critical failure, and they'll get a level every other turn or so. Level them up like that for a few turns so you're ready when the hero spam begins. If the spam already started, it's still a valid way to level them, but you might get attacked and killed often so it's harder. It can be worth sending them way far to find a province without a dozen of heroes camping waiting to assassinate your shit to get them leveled.