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On September 09 2017 06:59 andrewlt wrote:
Has anybody played a game recently? I just started playing and I feel like my experience, even on normal difficulty, is different from the early pages of the thread. I'm playing as empire. I'm just guessing that I'm either getting the short end of the RNG stick or recent changes have made things different. I'm going to do this in bullet point format to make it easier to respond to.
1. Bretonnia attacked Marienburg very early in my game. I blitzed Reikland and they were already besieging it before I was done. I ended up conquering Middenland and Nordland instead and the smaller Wasteland province after Marienburg declared war on me. None of the Bretonnian factions would trade with me until after the chaos invasion. I eventually got deals with all of them but my trade income plummeted after they confederated one by one. Two of the Bretonnian factions couldn't even beat Mousillion (?) two on one. They aren't at war anymore because Bretonnia isn't at war with Mousy.
2. The Northern tribes seem to be way more annoying in my game, especially after the turn 85 chaos invasion. They sacked Marienburg and were threatening my main cities. Luckily, I was building up a new army in my capital around the time. I had to stop recruiting and rush them to Carroburg and barely won with the garrison helping. Bretonnia was too busy besieging a dwarven enemy with all 3 of their stacks to bother defending a very rich tier 5 city. The Norscans were even nice enough to besiege for around 3 turns before assaulting the city. I had to deal with every Norscan raid because Bretonnia was too incompetent to. Before the chaos invasion, while I was building up my infrastructure, I even had two armies basically raze all their coastline cities. They rebuilt them ridiculously fast. Or another faction took over and became my new pain in the ass.
3. Kislev just refused to trade with me all game then eventually got destroyed by the northern tribes + Templehof. They had 8-10 settlements at the height of their power but were dead by the time chaos arrived. I couldn't get non-aggression pacts or anything else out of them.
4. The main dwarf faction agreed to trade with me early game but our trade route got cut off after only a few turns. They haven't restored it yet. The minor dwarf factions only traded with me after the chaos invasion. They kept offering alliances which I agreed to because I thought refusing might put my trading income at the risk of being cancelled. They've been useless allies so far. One dragged me into a war with the wood elves. I haven't fought the elves yet but those dwarves are getting their shit pushed in. Another one is getting their ass kicked by respawning beastmen. I had to reload a couple of turns and rush an army back to protect Wissenland from being razed to the ground by the beastmen. The main dwarf faction still hasn't reconnected a trading route to me.
5. I may have made a mistake by confederating Ostland. But they were conquering the other minor empire factions while getting their northern settlements razed by the northern tribes. And that was before Kislev got obliterated too.
6. Income is really a pain. I have 6 armies now in the late game but 3 of them are pretty weak. I think my 2 main armies require 5k each on upkeep and that's without the additional lord penalty factored in. It was difficult to get any trade going. Estalia, Tilea and the other southern factions refuse to trade. Bretonnia and the minor dwarf factions only said yes after the chaos invasion. I kept my rating at steadfast for most of the game too. Only times it dipped below were because some ally dragged me into a war.
7. Defending my empire is really difficult. I feel at the mercy of AI raiding party RNG. I can only afford 6 armies and can't be everywhere at once while simultaneously trying to actually complete campaign objectives. I can only spare 2 out of the 6 to conquer Sylvania and fight chaos and finish reconquering the eastern parts of the empire. And even then, it requires luck and save scumming for my armies to be in position to defend against raiding parties.
8. The supposed buffer states that the empire relies on have been very useless thus far. I don't know if the Norsca, Beastmen and Wood Elves DLC have made those AI factions more powerful. My southern flank is exposed because I can't rely on the dwarves against the beastmen. The western flank is exposed to the northern tribes and Bretonnia is completely useless at fighting them. Northeast is exposed because Kislev was a total pushover to the northern tribes as well. I have to defend every border of my empire because my allies or even neutral neighbors are all losing their battles against raiders and enemy factions.
I am on turn 110-120, btw.
How you're describing playing is not really how I'd recommend playing empire, in a few ways. Unlike some other factions, Empire has it coming from all sides... it's really important to do anything you can to not overextend. The standard version of this strategy is called "Fortress Reikland" and some versions literally have you in exactly that province and no more.
As Empire, I pretty much NEVER declare war on an empire or dwarf faction. Very occasionally I'll pick off a weaker, disliked Bretonnian faction, but I mostly leave them alone too. Expansion is largely a matter of settling ruins or, (quite late in the game) confederating. But you don't need to be big. Controlling the southernmost swathe of provinces is plenty: making war on the Vamps makes everybody like you and you're far from the Norscan raiders... You can defend this area with 3-4 armies safely... expansion into border princes is pretty safe too if you're so inclined.
Because your goal as Empire isn't expansion... it's development first, and defending the world from evil second. If you're always fighting Chaos/Norsca/Beastmen and sneaking in expeditions against Greenskin/Vampire settlements when you're free, you can get extremely well-liked (trade!) and also just keep your to-do list short.
Then, when the Chaos invasion is done or nearly done, you can confederate whatever Imperial factions remain (if you played cautious, it won't be much, sometimes not anything) and settle the ruins of your empire. You triple your realm in the last dozen turns and take the victory.
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I did a beast men campaign and just sticking to one army I created a path of destruction from estalia all the way to kislev. I feel so sneaky for hiding and picking off underguarded settlements but it so fun
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Oh and I forgot: never make an alliance.
There are exceptions, but they are properly exceptional. Alliances are bad news and drag you into bad wars. No-one cares if you refuse an alliance, but everyone gets angry if you betray one because two of your allies decided to have a pissing contest.
Lategame I'll ally Bretonnia and Dwarf confederated factions as long as they're not looking to fight each other. Other than that, never nothing never.
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Northern Ireland22206 Posts
On September 09 2017 13:47 Yoav wrote:
Oh and I forgot: never make an alliance.
There are exceptions, but they are properly exceptional. Alliances are bad news and drag you into bad wars. No-one cares if you refuse an alliance, but everyone gets angry if you betray one because two of your allies decided to have a pissing contest.
Lategame I'll ally Bretonnia and Dwarf confederated factions as long as they're not looking to fight each other. Other than that, never nothing never.
full alliances, or even defensive alliances?
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On September 10 2017 08:08 ahswtini wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2017 13:47 Yoav wrote:
Oh and I forgot: never make an alliance.
There are exceptions, but they are properly exceptional. Alliances are bad news and drag you into bad wars. No-one cares if you refuse an alliance, but everyone gets angry if you betray one because two of your allies decided to have a pissing contest.
Lategame I'll ally Bretonnia and Dwarf confederated factions as long as they're not looking to fight each other. Other than that, never nothing never. full alliances, or even defensive alliances?
defensive draws you in when war gets declared on your ally, so you don't want either.
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Yeah I avoid both. Again, excepting huge, well-liked bret/dwarf factions and only then VERY lategame.
You're not a noble house: you're the Night's Watch. You're there to defend civilization. Don't get sucked into the little stuff.
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So I picked this game up recently because I was in the mood for some Total War series and didn't want to replay Shogun II or Empire/Napoleon for the Nth time. Additionally I do like the pseudo medieval setting mixed in with fantasy creatures.
I went on youtube to watch some let's plays but they're all mostly from the launch era of the game, and they feel heavily dated from the current way the game plays on the campaign map.
What do you guys suggest as a good starting nation? Dwarves seem to be considered "easy" but they do lack cavalry units. Empire is described as most "balanced" because it has a unit for everything, but they don't excel at any thing, also their starting location feels a bit iffy. I don't like starting right in the middle of everything besieged on all fronts.
Also, you guys got any helpful tips for beginners. I know the basics of all total war games since I've been playing since medieval 1 and rome 1, but any special warhammer tips?
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On September 09 2017 09:12 Yoav wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2017 06:59 andrewlt wrote:
Has anybody played a game recently? I just started playing and I feel like my experience, even on normal difficulty, is different from the early pages of the thread. I'm playing as empire. I'm just guessing that I'm either getting the short end of the RNG stick or recent changes have made things different. I'm going to do this in bullet point format to make it easier to respond to.
1. Bretonnia attacked Marienburg very early in my game. I blitzed Reikland and they were already besieging it before I was done. I ended up conquering Middenland and Nordland instead and the smaller Wasteland province after Marienburg declared war on me. None of the Bretonnian factions would trade with me until after the chaos invasion. I eventually got deals with all of them but my trade income plummeted after they confederated one by one. Two of the Bretonnian factions couldn't even beat Mousillion (?) two on one. They aren't at war anymore because Bretonnia isn't at war with Mousy.
2. The Northern tribes seem to be way more annoying in my game, especially after the turn 85 chaos invasion. They sacked Marienburg and were threatening my main cities. Luckily, I was building up a new army in my capital around the time. I had to stop recruiting and rush them to Carroburg and barely won with the garrison helping. Bretonnia was too busy besieging a dwarven enemy with all 3 of their stacks to bother defending a very rich tier 5 city. The Norscans were even nice enough to besiege for around 3 turns before assaulting the city. I had to deal with every Norscan raid because Bretonnia was too incompetent to. Before the chaos invasion, while I was building up my infrastructure, I even had two armies basically raze all their coastline cities. They rebuilt them ridiculously fast. Or another faction took over and became my new pain in the ass.
3. Kislev just refused to trade with me all game then eventually got destroyed by the northern tribes + Templehof. They had 8-10 settlements at the height of their power but were dead by the time chaos arrived. I couldn't get non-aggression pacts or anything else out of them.
4. The main dwarf faction agreed to trade with me early game but our trade route got cut off after only a few turns. They haven't restored it yet. The minor dwarf factions only traded with me after the chaos invasion. They kept offering alliances which I agreed to because I thought refusing might put my trading income at the risk of being cancelled. They've been useless allies so far. One dragged me into a war with the wood elves. I haven't fought the elves yet but those dwarves are getting their shit pushed in. Another one is getting their ass kicked by respawning beastmen. I had to reload a couple of turns and rush an army back to protect Wissenland from being razed to the ground by the beastmen. The main dwarf faction still hasn't reconnected a trading route to me.
5. I may have made a mistake by confederating Ostland. But they were conquering the other minor empire factions while getting their northern settlements razed by the northern tribes. And that was before Kislev got obliterated too.
6. Income is really a pain. I have 6 armies now in the late game but 3 of them are pretty weak. I think my 2 main armies require 5k each on upkeep and that's without the additional lord penalty factored in. It was difficult to get any trade going. Estalia, Tilea and the other southern factions refuse to trade. Bretonnia and the minor dwarf factions only said yes after the chaos invasion. I kept my rating at steadfast for most of the game too. Only times it dipped below were because some ally dragged me into a war.
7. Defending my empire is really difficult. I feel at the mercy of AI raiding party RNG. I can only afford 6 armies and can't be everywhere at once while simultaneously trying to actually complete campaign objectives. I can only spare 2 out of the 6 to conquer Sylvania and fight chaos and finish reconquering the eastern parts of the empire. And even then, it requires luck and save scumming for my armies to be in position to defend against raiding parties.
8. The supposed buffer states that the empire relies on have been very useless thus far. I don't know if the Norsca, Beastmen and Wood Elves DLC have made those AI factions more powerful. My southern flank is exposed because I can't rely on the dwarves against the beastmen. The western flank is exposed to the northern tribes and Bretonnia is completely useless at fighting them. Northeast is exposed because Kislev was a total pushover to the northern tribes as well. I have to defend every border of my empire because my allies or even neutral neighbors are all losing their battles against raiders and enemy factions.
I am on turn 110-120, btw. How you're describing playing is not really how I'd recommend playing empire, in a few ways. Unlike some other factions, Empire has it coming from all sides... it's really important to do anything you can to not overextend. The standard version of this strategy is called "Fortress Reikland" and some versions literally have you in exactly that province and no more. As Empire, I pretty much NEVER declare war on an empire or dwarf faction. Very occasionally I'll pick off a weaker, disliked Bretonnian faction, but I mostly leave them alone too. Expansion is largely a matter of settling ruins or, (quite late in the game) confederating. But you don't need to be big. Controlling the southernmost swathe of provinces is plenty: making war on the Vamps makes everybody like you and you're far from the Norscan raiders... You can defend this area with 3-4 armies safely... expansion into border princes is pretty safe too if you're so inclined. Because your goal as Empire isn't expansion... it's development first, and defending the world from evil second. If you're always fighting Chaos/Norsca/Beastmen and sneaking in expeditions against Greenskin/Vampire settlements when you're free, you can get extremely well-liked (trade!) and also just keep your to-do list short. Then, when the Chaos invasion is done or nearly done, you can confederate whatever Imperial factions remain (if you played cautious, it won't be much, sometimes not anything) and settle the ruins of your empire. You triple your realm in the last dozen turns and take the victory.
I like Middenland and I think taking them out early was a good thing for my playstyle. My mistake was conquering Nordland afterwards. They were allied with Middenland and sued for peace after I conquered Middenland. I should've accepted and maybe even tried to vassal them. We had never even fought a battle before that. I thought I would get enough income from it to station an army there permanently but I didn't realize how expensive upkeep is in this game. I could've left Middenland undefended with Nordland there to act as a buffer. To compound my mistake, I ended up setting the ruins of Ostland's northwestern settlement because I thought it was close enough.
My other big mistake was confederating Ostland after the initial chaos invasion. I should've tried it with Averland and their one settlement instead. Or just declared war and conquered them so I have a pathway to the Vampire counts while Ostland slows down the chaos invasion. Part of the problem is that Ostland conquered the other empire factions in the northeast. My northeast buffer was down to one faction, especially with Kislev totally destroyed. Confederating them was a bit of a panic move.
Raiding parties being able to switch between raiding and march stance in your provinces is still an unfun game mechanic to deal with, though. I've learned how to deal with them better in the late game but both it and my strat feels exploitative. The building chain to get additional witch hunters is very expensive.
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Norsca has a nice spot where if you conquer/confederate the entire peninsula you are pretty safe. Otherwise you could go for a horde race like beast men where you have no base. All the other races and factions start in a spot where they can get attacked from almost any direction afaik...
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On September 11 2017 21:51 Latham wrote:
So I picked this game up recently because I was in the mood for some Total War series and didn't want to replay Shogun II or Empire/Napoleon for the Nth time. Additionally I do like the pseudo medieval setting mixed in with fantasy creatures.
I went on youtube to watch some let's plays but they're all mostly from the launch era of the game, and they feel heavily dated from the current way the game plays on the campaign map.
What do you guys suggest as a good starting nation? Dwarves seem to be considered "easy" but they do lack cavalry units. Empire is described as most "balanced" because it has a unit for everything, but they don't excel at any thing, also their starting location feels a bit iffy. I don't like starting right in the middle of everything besieged on all fronts.
Also, you guys got any helpful tips for beginners. I know the basics of all total war games since I've been playing since medieval 1 and rome 1, but any special warhammer tips?
There's a ton of LPs, some of which are more recent, though the very fact that DLC's free stuff changes so much about the game (which is great) means that they get out of date pretty fast.
Dwarves are the easiest start. Even the AI Dawi usually beat all the Greenskins and basically "win" the game. Your early units kick the crap out of goblins, and your weaknesses aren't really exploited by the AI in the way a player would exploit them (Dwarfs quite weak in multiplayer.)
That said, Dwarves almost totally lack magic, so if you're looking for what's distinctively "fantasy" there's a lot to be said for doing something else. Norsca is a good pick: pretty simple magic, some nice monsters, and a rounded roster lacking a little in ranged. Also, earlygame Norsca is basically a different faction from lategame in a way unlike most other factions.
Empire is awesome (my favorite to play) but quite complicated in a lot of ways... magic is plentiful, but hard to get to. Specialists are all quite good, but most of your core stuff is shit except greatswords. And on campaign map they get it from all sides.
Bretonnia is good if you want something familiar from historical titles. They're cav-based, which is also just kinda fun. Campaign difficulty depends a lot on how things go for Mousillon and/or Wood Elves, which isn't entirely under your control, so be wary of that and try to deal with any vampires before things get out of hand.
WE is strange but cool. Great campaign map spot for survival, but kinda hard to break out on the harder difficulties. I'm a big fan of the Kurnos Vult plan of just beelining Norsca, though it's trickier these days.
Greenskins are actually pretty balanced too, but with really nice high tier line infantry, and good cavalry throughout. Start position is okay, not great. Fighting other Greenskins until you get better troops is a decent idea, because Dwarf armor laughs off your early tier stuff.
Vampires is a pretty easy campaign, but I personally find them a little boring. Great magic, if that's your thing, and some fun monsters. Corruption keeps you pretty defended, and you can stay out of Chaos's way for a while if you want.
Beastmen are strange and I wouldn't recommend starting with them. Battles are easy enough; the difficulty is on the campaign map.
Angrund/Crooked Moon should be attempted later.
Warriors of Chaos is kinda boring. Wait for the third game, which will highlight these guys.
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On September 11 2017 21:51 Latham wrote:
So I picked this game up recently because I was in the mood for some Total War series and didn't want to replay Shogun II or Empire/Napoleon for the Nth time. Additionally I do like the pseudo medieval setting mixed in with fantasy creatures.
I went on youtube to watch some let's plays but they're all mostly from the launch era of the game, and they feel heavily dated from the current way the game plays on the campaign map.
What do you guys suggest as a good starting nation? Dwarves seem to be considered "easy" but they do lack cavalry units. Empire is described as most "balanced" because it has a unit for everything, but they don't excel at any thing, also their starting location feels a bit iffy. I don't like starting right in the middle of everything besieged on all fronts.
Also, you guys got any helpful tips for beginners. I know the basics of all total war games since I've been playing since medieval 1 and rome 1, but any special warhammer tips?
First of all, you should forget most of the things you learned in TW series. Sure, a lot of it is similar but the differences hit you in the face pretty soon (I still think that this marriage is the best thing that happened to both GW and CA).
What Yoav mentioned previously holds true. On the gameplay stuff you should definitely watch dudes that have been streaming it from the beginning, continue to do so and are TW veterans themselves (they stream MP and campaigns):
https://www.youtube.com/user/HeirofCarthage
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNDJiDFJWaiKktyUBmVzGYA
That's a good place to start. Especially with Turin's channel, who makes a lot of effort to explain the reasoning behind taking every single unit in MP (strengths, weaknesses, what does it counter etc.).
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Good lord, I almost quit my current campaign to start a new one at the very, very, very end game. I made a plan to slowly rebuild the ex-Kislev settlements so I can make my way to the warriors of chaos without suffering too much attrition. However, they showed up with 3 stacks and attacked me instead. After I wiped them out, I had to eliminate the warherd of chaos, who were hiding and traveling underground on those areas with attrition and just playing hard to get.
In the maybe 4-5 turns I spent looking for the warherd of chaos, stupid Archaon and the warriors of chaos respawned already. I then decided to just make my way north with 3 stacks while using encamp stance to avoid attrition and heal up. He refused to fight me and started running away towards Norscan territory. At that point, all I cared about is if there was some nice cinematic after finishing the long campaign (there isn't). I just save scummed trying to catch his two stacks and hoping my almost level 20 witch hunter's block army was successful. Eventually, I got lucky with an auto-resolve killing both his armies so I didn't have to chase the remnants of his army a second time. I already won a manually fought pretty fun, epic battle against him the first time around. I had zero motivation of doing it a second time after just a few turns.
Is there a way to prevent him from constantly respawning? Other than finishing the game?
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So how many Skinks named Lil' Skittles do you think there will be?
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On September 12 2017 13:23 andrewlt wrote:
Good lord, I almost quit my current campaign to start a new one at the very, very, very end game. I made a plan to slowly rebuild the ex-Kislev settlements so I can make my way to the warriors of chaos without suffering too much attrition. However, they showed up with 3 stacks and attacked me instead. After I wiped them out, I had to eliminate the warherd of chaos, who were hiding and traveling underground on those areas with attrition and just playing hard to get.
In the maybe 4-5 turns I spent looking for the warherd of chaos, stupid Archaon and the warriors of chaos respawned already. I then decided to just make my way north with 3 stacks while using encamp stance to avoid attrition and heal up. He refused to fight me and started running away towards Norscan territory. At that point, all I cared about is if there was some nice cinematic after finishing the long campaign (there isn't). I just save scummed trying to catch his two stacks and hoping my almost level 20 witch hunter's block army was successful. Eventually, I got lucky with an auto-resolve killing both his armies so I didn't have to chase the remnants of his army a second time. I already won a manually fought pretty fun, epic battle against him the first time around. I had zero motivation of doing it a second time after just a few turns.
Is there a way to prevent him from constantly respawning? Other than finishing the game?
Not infrequently my games end with an army stack or two camped outside the door to the Chaos Wastes so he has to fight me to enter the world.
With Wood Elves it's fun to try to roll Norsca by the time Archaeon shows up and only kill him the once.
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I think Archaon just respawns a number of times based on the difficulty setting before he is defeated.
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That's true, but you don't have to beat him multiple times... any time he's down and your other objectives are completed you win.
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Northern Ireland22206 Posts
if you wipe out all the chaos armies, including archaon, will he still respawn?
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On September 13 2017 00:27 ahswtini wrote:
if you wipe out all the chaos armies, including archaon, will he still respawn?
I'm pretty sure yes... the invasion comes in a few "waves" usually. (Or maybe there's always some hidden army I'm missing.)
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I beat him the first time around turn 145. He respawned around 5 turns later. And yes, I wiped out all the other stacks as well. I was checking the campaign objectives at that point and warriors of chaos was checked. My reason for chasing him is pretty much because I was worried that warherd of chaos was going to respawn if I waited for him to come to me.
The campaign is the weak spot of my Empire play through. The campaign is based on the style CA adopted for Rome 2, which has a lot of annoyances for me. The battles are easily the strength of that campaign. I had fun with that unit roster. I have an affinity for artillery in these games and the Empire delivered. Nice to have greatswords and good cavalry for the hammer and anvil play style once the enemy gets close to my artillery. I tried to make the witch hunter work in battles as a hero/lord/small unit sniper but it doesn't seem like he's doing much damage and keeps getting his line of fire blocked.
Going to try the wood elves mini-campaign with Durthu then the main campaign with King Orion. Looking at the campaign objectives, it seems that I can just turtle and build up while conquering nearby settlements to get enough armies to beat the final battle? What do people do in that campaign?
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On September 13 2017 00:27 ahswtini wrote:
if you wipe out all the chaos armies, including archaon, will he still respawn?
As long as you haven't gotten the message about a age of peace, Chaos will respawn. In case you might have missed the message, check the current campaigneffects (top center of the campaign screen, there are little icons). If you no longer got a map wide chaoscorruption +2(?), chaos is dead. Beastmen can still spawn, just like all tribes but not the warherds of chaos.
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EPT
