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[karnage10]

Started an Empire playthrough after finishing a long Greenskin campaign on Normal. Bumped the difficulty up to hard because that campaign really got easy towards the end. As a relative newcomer to this series, ouch at the difficulty bump

I've been just barely surviving by the skin of my teeth. If it isn't the greedy neighboring human factions, it's the greenskins, the beastmen, or the vampires.

The attacks keep on coming from all sides and I've not had money to put on developing higher tier troops at all. Very rarely had one full province under control.

One time, because Skarsnik and his Waagh kept repeatedly sacking my smaller settlements, with a force so plentiful and advanced that I had no chance of taking it on, I had to sneak roughly 26 low tier units behind Skarsnik's back and destroy his 3 well-developed cities to demolish his supply line. He only started caring once I destroyed his 2nd and the bankruptcy tore down his Waagh. That was too late because he was much too weak to risk tunneling under me to save the 3rd city.

BUT, it seems that being the world's punching bag who's loyal to his fellow humans, pays off. Other countries just can't wait to confederate with me for fighting whatever is Public Enemy #1, and despite me abusing some of those new cities by taxing them dry, not caring about rebellions, not defending them against vampire factions, I still come ahead. And now with Skarsnik out I can start taking care of the undead that have settled in the cities that the greenskins have razed.

This is precisely why i hate starting with empire. When playing with empire you will be surrounded by possible enemies. The best strategy will "always" be to go for bretonnia and get marienburg. What makes the campaign hard is that empire has, imo, the worst starting units (swordsmen and spearmen are really crappy) and is heavily dependent on the micro of the cavalry which means you can't really fight a 2 vs 1 fight. with the GS,VC, dwarfs, beastmen and WoC you can win a 2 vs 1 fight if you play to your strenghts (even in the early game) with the empire it is really hard to win such fights.

From the looks of it during one of their campaign let's play thing, they showed that you could recruit Dryads(low tier tree units) as Orion without spending Amber. Wether or not that's final, we don't know, but the description on Steam seemed to imply it was only for the high tier units, there just wasn't really a confirmation before that(and this isn't a confirmation, just a possibility, test builds are for testing).

Most likely you'll only need to use Amber for the higher tier stuff(like say 4 and 5, assuming it uses a 5tier progression, maybe 3 too), so you could still have elves with Durthu. It'd be hard to balance a tree only army because it'd either be too monotonous(not enough units on the tree side really and a lot are super expensive so it'd be dryads with 1 or 2 good units) or too OP if they made some heavy cost reductions cause treemen are high tiers and stuff.

Still Orion gets all that sweet ranged buffs line in his talents to make your archers stupid, so that's definitely something.

Personally think I'll be going Orion full archer(well maybe a couple of these stag riding cav, they look funny, and obviously at least 1 caster for fancy spells). Sieges are gonna be boring as hell considering how dumb the AI is though, just stack all the archer on one point and rain down death on the walls constantly for 5mins until the AI is tired of sending all his army on the walls 1 by 1.

That makes sense, if it is just the high tier units i might go for durthu.

 

[LurkerPrime]

New Grudge issued: Achieve Rank 10 with Engineer (0/1)

Highest is Rank 5. Agggghhhhhh.....


Edit: That single grudge set me back 20-30 turns for my Long Victory, cascading into a myriad of other grudges as allies declared war on one another (and thus me).

 

[karnage10]

New Grudge issued: Achieve Rank 10 with Engineer (0/1)

Highest is Rank 5. Agggghhhhhh.....


Edit: That single grudge set me back 20-30 turns for my Long Victory, cascading into a myriad of other grudges as allies declared war on one another (and thus me).

Every time you reply i kinda LOL because of how unlucky you are.

 

[Nordicus]

Further in with Empire, wiping out the vampires was relatively easy, but my expansion and warring has come at a high cost.

Using all my money on upkeep, I have little funds with which to improve the economy and obedience of the various provinces I've captured. The corruption of both Chaotic and Vampiric, and the following rebellions, are proving too much of a hassle so I cut my troops down by half and learned to focus on few key provinces to make them profitable and stable. I'll stop claiming settlements simply to have a temporary resting place. It's not worth the effort if I'm not going to dedicate some effort into cleasing it afterwards.

I have some higher tier troops but no actual top-end, so I had to 2v1 Archaon to just barely beat him. It didn't help that my reinforcements came from an absolutely hopeless location that was just too far from the actual battle that I nearly lost Karl Franz simply due to being hopelessly overpowered half the fight.

 

[Nordicus]

Hmm, something rather interesting happened.

I had this story fight with Gelt against a Chaos army. No reinforcements, "just" a dozen units of various heavily armored infantry, few chaos trolls, a chaos giant, and most importantly, 4 units of sturdy shock cavalry with a mounted general on top.

When I go to that fight, the game is telling me that i should get an easy win.

I don't. Just get stomped instead. Like half a dozen attempts, because I'm stubborn and keep reloading the fight, trying to find a tactic that can win.

Every time, there is a combination of a strong shock cavalry charge obliterating my formation and keeping my ranged units and artillery out of the fight, and my squishier-than-Chaos melee units crumbling under their melee if the cavalry has left any standing.

I just couldn't seem to punish either side of their offensive, it seems that I just don't have armor penetration on my ranged units to soften their impact.

So I go and test out some of the artillery options in Custom Battle. Aaaand that's where it hits me.

I've been playing Hellblaster Volley Guns entirely wrong! They have to be in front, period, unlike the many other ranged troops I've played so far in the game, they can't fire over anything in an arc, they shoot straight, and require proper clearance.

So I put them in front and guard my flanks with my melee like a motherfucker, and then the cavalry that I lure in front of my volley guns with Outriders, completely melt. The rest of the fight becomes an absolute sweep and the 2 volley guns claim nearly half the kills.

 

[LurkerPrime]

They have a firing arc? No way... I wonder how much I've misued some units, myself.

Really, ranged weapons need a weapon arc identifier. I think my Dwarf campaign suffered a lot from underutilising ranged/siege weapons. (Gyro units seem kind of garbage, for example. Not that I used a bunch to begin with.)

Further in with Empire, wiping out the vampires was relatively easy, but my expansion and warring has come at a high cost.

Using all my money on upkeep, I have little funds with which to improve the economy and obedience of the various provinces I've captured. The corruption of both Chaotic and Vampiric, and the following rebellions, are proving too much of a hassle so I cut my troops down by half and learned to focus on few key provinces to make them profitable and stable. I'll stop claiming settlements simply to have a temporary resting place. It's not worth the effort if I'm not going to dedicate some effort into cleasing it afterwards.

I have some higher tier troops but no actual top-end, so I had to 2v1 Archaon to just barely beat him. It didn't help that my reinforcements came from an absolutely hopeless location that was just too far from the actual battle that I nearly lost Karl Franz simply due to being hopelessly overpowered half the fight.

I started a match as Wurrzag and I've basically been living this life myself. Constant rebellions, no money at all, but hey, at least Gorfang Rotgut is on my minion now. (Also HOLY COW I forgot how good Savage Orks are.)

Going from the Dwarves to Greenskins is such a sharp turn. Caring about rebellions, raiding, and disorder is really unimportant compared to the constant drive to conquer; after all, conquer enough and the rest will sort itself out. Provinces offer so little that it's better to nurture individual lords and their armies to take out the big targets, then hold onto what's valuable and sweep back to fully claim your rebellious lands. (The Very Hard disorder penalty makes keeping order up a much dicier affair--it's not really possible to lock down a province right away as I did in my previous run.)


And speaking of Gorfang, his waaagh was really disappointing next to Wurrzag's. Not sure what happened there, it was like half as big.

 

[Nordicus]

They have a firing arc? No way... I wonder how much I've misused some units, myself.

The volley guns are so picky that one time it tried going further downhill towards incoming cavalry because the hill had too much of a downward curve, which would have made the gun shoot over the enemies' heads.

That said, the quick changing of targets and good accuracy gives it some niche use over other armor piercing artillery. You finish off a unit of elite infantry/cavalry with half your volley then use the rest on another target immediately.

I think my Dwarf campaign suffered a lot from underutilising ranged/siege weapons. (Gyro units seem kind of garbage, for example. Not that I used a bunch to begin with.)

Gyrobombers are a unit I plan on trying out asap if I begin a dwarf campaign, because during my greenskin campaign, every time I met one of those, it wrecked like 3 of my units in one bombing run unless I made a conscious effort to keep myself spread out.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

I feel like the Skyhammer is the only good gyrocopter/bomber in the game.

 

[ElyrionX]

So what's the general consensus on this game? Also, how powerful is magic or how powerful are mages?

I am thinking of picking this up. Will it go on sale during the Steam winter sale? Also why is the DLC all so expensive? If I don't intend to play races such as the Beastmen, does it mean I should not pick up the DLC?

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

So what's the general consensus on this game? Also, how powerful is magic or how powerful are mages?

I am thinking of picking this up. Will it go on sale during the Steam winter sale? Also why is the DLC all so expensive? If I don't intend to play races such as the Beastmen, does it mean I should not pick up the DLC?

I think the consensus is pretty positive. There are a few things that they're slowly fixing but it's a good game.
The magic in this game can help out a lot but it's balanced with the magic pool that everyone has. There are ways to counter these wizards but you might need a hero level unit or a power unit that can trapped them.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Admitting that I've missed a lot of each franchise, I'd dare to call it the best Total War and Warhammer game commercially released. It's a really good mix of both franchises.

Whoever came up with the idea should get a raise. And whoever forced it to be called Total War: Warhammer shouldn't.

 

[Stevey]

I noticed that with some Greenskin ranged units, can't remember which ones, but they weren't firing, clicked on them and it said blocked or something, they had to have a clear line to the target.

 

[Memory]

Any news in Mac support?

 

[Nordicus]

I noticed that with some Greenskin ranged units, can't remember which ones, but they weren't firing, clicked on them and it said blocked or something, they had to have a clear line to the target.

Bumped into that with my first campaign. Even if they can fire at an arc, ranged units won't fire if the enemy target is too surrounded by friendlies.

 

[Pyros_Eien]

Bumped into that with my first campaign. Even if they can fire at an arc, ranged units won't fire if the enemy target is too surrounded by friendlies.

They should, but only if the units aren't between the archers and the targets. If you flank with your archers(not so great with foot archers, but mounted archers like gobbos it's easy), they'll start firing at stuff in a melee. Overall there's a lot of blocking potential, and yeah artillery you have to double check, most stuff other than trebuchet/catapult type will require clear line of sights(or flanking positions) to fire, like cannons and stuff. I believe they also always fire at large units like giants, araknoks etc, and I think high ground helps with blocking, at least I'd always put my artillery on high ground with like a unit of fodder at the foot of the hill to protect them and those wouldn't block usually.

Used properly those work wonders against the AI, though not so much in multi cause everyone runs flying heroes and shit and basically you fire twice the entire match then all your artillery is tied in melee combat or dead.

Even the not so great Hellcannons would get me 150-200kills every battle playing Chaos against the AI, you just put it on a hill on the side, put one or two units of antilarge to deal with any cav around them and just fire the entire battle at stuff.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

Looks like some Youtubers already have content of the DLC out right now.

 

[Dmax3901]

I can say the embargo is up in roughly 12 hours.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

https://youtu.be/JOlAKqmy0Jc
Wizards and Maps yo.

 

[LurkerPrime]

How many mages can the Empire have?

The answer is all of them.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

I was hoping that the VCs at least get lore of shadow out of this.
But man, the empire is top teir faction in the game.

 

[Aztechnology]

When is the Xpac supposed to unlock?

 

[LurkerPrime]

Wait... it's out on the 8th, not the 9th? This honestly changes everything.

(Steam says it unlocks about 11 hours from my post, which would put it at Steam's standard unlock time.)

 

[Pyros_Eien]

Unlocks at 16(4PM) GMT officially. That's in like 9hours if my timezone skills are correct but don't care to check since I'm gonna be sleeping anyway.

Pretty excited, the stuff I've seen looks great.

Note that they redid the autoresolve algorithm a bit to favor putting damage on cheaper melee units(kinda like if you use them as fodder) and with Eternal Guards being squishy as all hell, it seems it can have pretty extreme results, like losing a bunch of units from a favorable encounter. So might not want to autoresolve too often with elves(and other armies too I guess, like gobbos/skeletons are probably going to die really easy).

 

[LurkerPrime]

The expansion and (shudder) "free-LCs" are out now. Be sure to grab the latter manually:





Altogether its a 5.5 GB download for me. If you don't see it restart Steam.

 

[Zunja]

I really love this game but man am I garbage at it. The only way I can win campaigns is by doing easy and spamming the crap outta strong units. I've even tried to do custom computer battles to practice and I still lose.

I do the auto generate for both sides and still can't win even if I switch to the winning side next time. Are there any good guides for this game and how to get better. I want to actually play it but easy is honestly kind of boring but I can't play anything harder. I feel like I'm just doing something fundamentally wrong.

 

[Lister]

I really love this game but man am I garbage at it. The only way I can win campaigns is by doing easy and spamming the crap outta strong units. I've even tried to do custom computer battles to practice and I still lose.

I do the auto generate for both sides and still can't win even if I switch to the winning side next time. Are there any good guides for this game and how to get better. I want to actually play it but easy is honestly kind of boring but I can't play anything harder. I feel like I'm just doing something fundamentally wrong.

This guy has seom relaly good videos explaining combat tactics to beginners. I don't think he goes deep into campaign/economics/diplomacy/city management, etc though:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg3BiSs8eBE9hA9EWYTgtAg/playlists

But that should have you doing well in combat.

Can't wait to get home tonight!!

 

[johancruijff]

preallocating

Update your VGA drivers if the game crash at startup

 

[Stevey]

Hype.

Harpies and some other Beastmen stuff unlocked as well on launch.

 

[Nordicus]

I think I get way too turtley when I have artillery superiority.

Had a story fight slowly grind me out 3 attempts in a row, but then I send my greatswords charging at enemy lines one time and the fight turns into an easy slaughter.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Durthu is amazing. Really great art on him. I think he might be the biggest Legendary Lord in the game, even moreso than Kholek Suneater; not 100% sure though. He might also end up stronger than Grimgor if you build him right, which is downright shocking to me. (Grimgor is an absolute terror.) I really like the dude, although he only has one quest item which is a bummer.

The issue is... Durthu is fighting Dwarves right off the bat. Highly-armoured, shielded Dwarves. So you have almost no good troops to use against them, and very little money or income to really build off of. I'm having trouble figuring out what to do, unless I conquer my fellow elves...

Elven units are cool, though. Very strong cavalry and archers, and the Treemen units seem very promising. The Wood Elf factions get huuuuge bonuses as they progress, which will make assaults on their woods very difficult.


Now... I have some dark designs on the Norsca. If I can get up there as attrition-free Durthu, I can conquer their lands easily, get that port tech, and then have infinite money and a largely opposition-free stronghold. The Chaos invasion with the power of a mewling kitten will be an added bonus.

 

[Nordicus]

Damn, now my endgame save keeps crashing when it's beastmen's turn :/

 

[Palmer_v1]

Anyone tried the WE mini campaign?

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

Anyone tried the WE mini campaign?

I have not but will try it out when I get home. From what I heard, you will deal with a lot of Beastmen.

 

[Lister]

Once Listy Jr. is in bed it's time fo rthe elves to play! will start with their mini campaign.

 

[Dmax3901]

Man Wood Elves initial challenge is definitely hard. For me at least.

 

[ElyrionX]

I just bought the core game since it's 25% off on Steam. Which of the DLCs are essential?

I intend to play Empire for now. I hear that the Grim and Grave DLC is important to the Empire as it adds RoR.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

I just bought the core game since it's 25% off on Steam. Which of the DLCs are essential?

I intend to play Empire for now. I hear that the Grim and Grave DLC is important to the Empire as it adds RoR.

I would get it. It brings a lot more stuff to the grand campaign and the multiplayer.

 

[LurkerPrime]

This expansion has some bugs.

But seriously, y'all haven't lived until you've seen a 10 foot tall eagle covered head to toe in blood.

 

[Dmax3901]

Ok so if anyone else has trouble starting out as Wood Elves... Stock up on archers and flex your diplomacy muscle. Works wonders (heh).

 

[Aztechnology]

I love that they finally made it so you can play co-op within the same faction. Me and my buddy are doing Elves together on Very Hard. I feel were off to kind of a slow start though. Mainly focusing on growth and diplomacy for now.

 

[Pyros_Eien]

Started the mini campaign first, tried the start of both Durthu and Orion, but lost on Orion super early to some sneaky beastmen moving in ambush all the way to the tree and killing it, which was pretty funny. So now doing Durthu, it's a rough start, unlike Orion you only have 1 settlement in your starting region and getting another involves attacking other elves that have level 3 garrisons so it's annoying. Also no one wants to trade with you or be friend, everyone hates you cause you're a tree or something.

It did give me time to test Dryads out though and they seem way superior to Eternal Guard for your basic infantry, so much that I think next time I play Orion I'll just destroy the elf building and make a dryad building. They're just a lot tankier it seems and they inflict fear which lets you win melees more easily. The building is kinda nice too cause at tier 3, you can get Branchwraiths which are shadow casters, they have a heal that helps a lot.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

Wood Elves are coming at me for alliances as Orion.

 

[LTWheels]

Struggling with AI march. I feel like I'm spending too much time chasing something I can't catch. Being able to sack a settlement then force march away...

 

[Maledict]

I really, really want to give this a try now its been patched and additional races added in. But the base game even on sale is £30, and then the DLC comes to another £48 which is utterly ridiculous.

Will there ever be a complete version?

 

[Pyros_Eien]

Wood Elves are coming at me for alliances as Orion.

Yeah when I played Orion everyone wanted military alliances and trades and what not, but as Durthu, I can't even get non agression pacts with anyone but the one wood elf faction that declared war on me and that I whooped 3times, but couldn't finish. It's definitely way rougher. Also apparently can't trade with Bretonnia or non wood elf factions without building one of the special building and assigning a lord to the position.

Struggling with AI march. I feel like I'm spending too much time chasing something I can't catch. Being able to sack a settlement then force march away...

They actually fixed this this patch? Was in the patch notes, the AI shouldn't be able to force march after sacking, I think.

I really, really want to give this a try now its been patched and additional races added in. But the base game even on sale is £30, and then the DLC comes to another £48 which is utterly ridiculous.

Will there ever be a complete version?

Maybe, but not soon. It's not even close to being complete race wise so if you're waiting for the "complete" experience before buying, then you'll have to wait a few more months/years. You could just buy the game and enjoy the races that are available then buy the ones you really want, that's kinda how the DLC system works.

I still haven't bought Beastmen and wouldn't have bought Chaos Warrior if it didn't come free with the base game, cause I don't really care about these. I'll buy Skaven and Dark Elves when they come out(assuming they're not part of the 2nd expansion, but probably will be), but don't care much about Lizardmen, Ogres, Chaos Dwarves and such either. And if they do Chaos gods as a non expansion, I'll just pick Khorne and Tzeentch, don't care about the other 2. I find if you buy just what you want it's fine and pricing is fairly decent compared to amount of gameplay you get. And the base game had 140ish hours worth of content for me, so it wasn't like some flimsy base game just to sell DLCs.

 

[LTWheels]

They actually fixed this this patch? Was in the patch notes, the AI shouldn't be able to force march after sacking, I think.




Maybe, but not soon. It's not even close to being complete race wise so if you're waiting for the "complete" experience before buying, then you'll have to wait a few more months/years. You could just buy the game and enjoy the races that are available then buy the ones you really want, that's kinda how the DLC system works.

Well it's happening when playing as wood elves so nope not fixed.

 

[johancruijff]

Struggling with AI march. I feel like I'm spending too much time chasing something I can't catch. Being able to sack a settlement then force march away...

yeah this is maddening, watching dawi run away after fucking your settlement is ridiculous

 

[Lister]

The map for the elves mini campaign is friggin gorgeous.

Didn't have much time to play last night, but hopefully I'll get time this weekend. 4 Beastmen full stacks have me scared, but I've got a buffer of now military allies which cna hopefully hold them off long enough for me to grow a bit.

 

[Palmer_v1]

So the Wood Elves are a faction that suffers from auto-resolve. I've tried it a few times with an Orion army. 3 of each kind of the base archer, 1 deepwood rangers, and 1 other ranged unit I forget, plus one each flying and cavalry starting unit. Fill the rest with the starting spear unit.

Playing an Azrog stack, I have a 70% issue chance to win. If I fight it out manually, I take almost no archer losses, and maybe 50% attrition on everything else. If I auto-resolve that same fight, I still win, but I completely lose 3 melee units, and suffer more attrition in general to everything else.

It was worse when I sent a damaged stack to finish off a routed beastmen stack. The archers in my army ALONE could massacre them without taking losses, but auto resolve thinks it's a good idea to send in my half health melee so I end up losing units in what should be a freebie battle.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

Is it just me or do the beastmen not move ever turn? It feels like they stay in one place for a few turns.