Total War: Warhammer

[Wingflier]

Ah, somehow I knew you were playing the Vampires. They seem to have the most ways to cheese the computer. Still though, that's a very impressive achievement.

[Wingflier]

Check out this video. In my opinion this is a good example of what the battles feel like:

https://youtu.be/6veLf2RRk0k

[Mánagarmr]

Check out this video. In my opinion this is a good example of what the battles feel like:

https://youtu.be/6veLf2RRk0k

Complete an utter chaos, no overview and mostly watching? I think that's why I don't play Total War games

[eRe4s3r]

Check out this video. In my opinion this is a good example of what the battles feel like:

https://youtu.be/6veLf2RRk0k

Complete an utter chaos, no overview and mostly watching? I think that's why I don't play Total War games

It is a lot more tactical and less chaos (most of the time) in SP ;P And to be fair, watching epic battles unfold IS total war.

[Wingflier]

I'm kind of amused by that response. You think real medieval battles weren't chaotic? What were they all supposed to line up and shoot each other honorably like the British until one side collapsed?

Hell yeah it's chaos, and it's beautiful.

[Mánagarmr]

I'm kind of amused by that response. You think real medieval battles weren't chaotic? What were they all supposed to line up and shoot each other honorably like the British until one side collapsed?

Hell yeah it's chaos, and it's beautiful.

No no, it makes perfect sense. It's just not what I enjoy playing. I've tried the Total War games and they're more like cinema than gameplay for me. I know there's more to it, but I just can't get around the non-interactivity. I guess I'm like Misery. Horrible horrible attention span.

[Wingflier]

Man I just can not get over this game. It's just so freaking deep and strategic.

I love the differences between the races both on the campaign map and in the game.

The Dwarf units really feel like Dwarves. Their infantry are easily the best in the game. In melee combat they are practically unbeatable. You either have to find a way to kite them or shell them with artillery from afar. Their ranged units are pretty damn strong too, and pull out a sword and shield when entering melee combat!

Their units are just so damn scary, and I'm still developing strategies on how to beat them in battle. Their only major weakness is that their units are fairly slow and they have no calvary.

On the campaign map, the differences between races are just as crazy. The first time I played I chose the Orcs because they seemed the easiest. They definitely fit my playstyle. The more you fight, the more the game rewards you. It's just as simple as that. Diplomacy is almost a non factor because all the non-Orc races hate you, and all the fellow Orc factions are not to be trusted...

So that's it. No holds barred conquest. The most diplomacy you generally have to worry about is when to attack whom so that you don't have a war on 3 different fronts (pull a Hitler).

But when I played the Dwarves, I was amazed at the difference. Diplomacy and trading becomes such a vital part of your success strategy. You want to ally with as many Dwarf races as possible, because they're generally trustworthy, and even humans can make good allies in certain situations. Opening up new trade routes allows your economy to expand dramatically, who allows you to field larger armies, which allow you to create more diplomatic opportunities. It's a positive feedback loop that lends itself to a whole different strategy to the Orc's kill everything.

Things like that make the game so fantastic. Playing those two races makes it feel as though I'm playing an entirely different game, both on the campaign map and in battle. And I haven't even really experimented much with the other three...

[Cyborg]

I'm enjoying this game, but I find the hero system somewhat broken. Full capacity armies can be quickly out-leveled and harassed by swarms of enemy heroes on the province map. They can take out army leaders and shutdown all movement based on a dice roll that seems often too successful. So what is the mechanic to counter it? Level your own heroes and participate in some weird dice rolling meta-game. That part I just don't like, and I think I might install a mod to remove it. It's not fun

[eRe4s3r]

Well that's what the "no aggressive actions" mod is for.. removes assault/assassinate from AI priority lists. So you can still do it (For quests mostly), but the AI can't. Sadly sometimes the AI does it anyway.. but for me that's maybe one in a hundred encounters.. so mostly fair ;P

[Wingflier]

I will admit that the hero mechanic is a bit gay but I appreciate why it's in the game. For one thing, if heroes didn't exist you'd have no way to scout the map without wasting precious turns or putting your army in mortal danger. As far as I know the assassin unit has been in every Total War game anyway.

There are a few ways to deal with it. Many heroes can reduce the chance of a positive outcome for the enemy assassin just by being part of the army. Many heroes make great assassins themselves so they can just assassinate problem characters for you. Finally, most of the time LORDS, especially high level Lords are only temporarily wounded, meaning that you only have to wait a few turns to use them again. In that way it's just like a penalty kill in hockey, which seems fair.

Maybe most importantly, if a hero is separated from its parent army, then it has no use in combat whatsoever. Which is why most the time the player won't use them for that purpose.

Would you rather have a 50% chance to assassinate an enemy Lord before a battle, raising your chances of success? Or 100% chance of bringing your hero into the battle, and the opportunity to create your own success? I rest my case. And 50% chance is pretty lenient for most high level enemy characters that you would even care about assassinating, a lot of the time it will be significantly lower than that. I'll just take an extra hero on the battlefield thanks.

Besides, the computer is really hurting their own economy by having a million heroes anyway. Each one increases your global army upkeep quite significantly and each hero action costs resources. This quickly adds up. But having your characters wounded or occasionally assassinated costs you nothing in raw resources, and is usually a minor inconvenience at best.

So like I said, annoying but balanced.

[eRe4s3r]

It would be balanced if hero level difference weren't adding a flat success (or fail) chance. This is what creates those unstoppable level 27 goblins that kill all of your heroes and lords. You can NOT kill them as they likely already have retinue that gives them massive bonus defense against hostile agent actions (those retinues and traits stack!)

Also if you lose a hero and can't afford lord recruitment that stack is lost, least in case of VC so it's a pretty serious threat and you have no way to counter it since low level heroes in the army do not add any defense to agent actions against a lord unless those heroes specifically have the "Guard" perk, at least for VC you wouldn't be able to even recruit those heroes until quite a while into the campaign. And that perk is a good 10 levels in the skill tree. If you have assassin parked next to you (chaos specifically) you won't even be able to recruit anything unless you have walls in every town. And even then it's every round a dice roll, and if you counter it, it's even twice as many dice rolls against you, since you will have high critical failure chances against high level heroes.

To be honest, this silly agent system has been bothering me since the original Shogun! ;P Also if your agent is very close to your army he can join it without spending movement points even after an action... just FYI ;P

[Wingflier]

It's not really a serious threat. Hero recruitment costs 800 gold. If you don't have 800 gold to spare you're already hosed. Hell, even on Very Hard I've sacked settlements for 40,000 gold and the k! tchen sink.

In addition, after each successful assassination attempt, the enemy hero has to wait a few turns before he can do it again. By that time your Lord should practically be alive again, and you can swap him back into the army.

Also, successive assassination attempts on the same hero in the same turn are highly unsuccessful because of penalties.

To be honest, my biggest frustration with the assassination is having to swap all the wounded hero's equipment over to the temporary replacement (and then back). Oi that is such a headache. The inventory system could use some work.

One last thing, I don't think heroes can join an army after committing an action because they have no movement points left. And it takes movement to walk into the army, even if it's just a step. I've tested this before by recruiting a hero into the same town as a Lord is occupying before. Since a hero starts with zero movement points when it's summoned, you have to wait until the next turn to combine them, even though they're standing on top of each other.

I could be wrong about this, I'll double check.