Warhammer: Total War

froog

started a new vamp game. figured out just by dividing my forces in three and having two attack their flanks makes a massive difference. took out templhof and am at war with the dwarves. looking at the map it seems i'm in kind of a ****ty position, right in the middle, i'm guessing i should invade south to build up in preparation for these chaos dudes? is the goal to wipe everyone out or should i be making long lasting treaties with factions?

picking up a lot of heroes randomly. what exactly do they do? I can't seem to move them either.

JD1763

Started a co-op game yesterday as vampire counts with the other player as orks but misplayed the start and Templehof was a pain in the a** for quite a while. I took Eschen and the other city (Waldenhof??) but he was able to raid Eschen and retreat to his capital in a single turn and then wiped out my second army completely when I tried to siege as he had grave ghouls and I was mainly skeletons. Still not strong enough to break him but have just gotten to grave guard units and black knights so hopefully can finally take western Sylvania once and for all.

Just a first impression of VCs - it takes a long time to get decent units out and it can be tough to stand up to armies like orks or that are ghoul heavy in the early game. On the plus side making loads of money from my capitals gold mine so can support large armies and I'm generating lots of hero units from fighting some nearby Orks who had taken Zhufbar.

I assigned the heroes to my generals army as a backup. You can also use them solo to assassinate enemy characters or damage their cities before attacking. Just select them and they should move as normal and when you click on an enemy you get the various action options.

pablomakaveli

I've noticed that enemy agents seem to damage all the units in my army when they perform an action. Is that supposed to happen? I can only pick one of theirs to damage with my agents.

froog

started another new VC game now i know what i'm doing a bit. it really is a tightrope walk trying not to overextend picking your battles and watching your back for chaos while trying to get some alliances going, every action affects relations with every other race. it's really absorbing. i can afford two good stacks now, i would need quite a bit more cities to afford a third. how many stacks should you have to tackle chaos head on?

PirateShampoo

froog wrote: »

started another new VC game now i know what i'm doing a bit. it really is a tightrope walk trying not to overextend picking your battles and watching your back for chaos while trying to get some alliances going, every action affects relations with every other race. it's really absorbing. i can afford two good stacks now, i would need quite a bit more cities to afford a third. how many stacks should you have to tackle chaos head on?

Just watch the tech tree for East and west Sylvania. The West you want to build the Tree for Terrorgist or vahlgist because it has a bonus building for that branch. In East you want to build your Eithrals.

killanena

Im loving this game, I have already finished an Empire and Greenskin campaign on hard. Currently doing 2 Dwarf campaign on very hard. One is a multiplayer and the other dude is playing greenskins.

I do have a few issues still with the game but days are early yet and they can be fixed.
Such as the enemy agents nearly always being successful and having so many different agents so early on.
In sieges the towers are too OP and can shoot across the whole map.
Auto-resolve is broken.
Dwarf grudges that can't be finished because a 5 stack army comes into your lands, raids and runs away to the other side of the map causing penalties.

J Mysterio

The agents are a right pain in the hole! Playing as Empire the Chaos agents drive me cracked!

froog

froog wrote: »

started another new VC game now i know what i'm doing a bit. it really is a tightrope walk trying not to overextend picking your battles and watching your back for chaos while trying to get some alliances going, every action affects relations with every other race. it's really absorbing. i can afford two good stacks now, i would need quite a bit more cities to afford a third. how many stacks should you have to tackle chaos head on?

the tide has turned for the counts! chaos is defeated, not much thanks to me in fairness, i killed a depleted stack which included their bossman so that's something. i now have two kick ass stacks and everyone's afraid of me, paying me tribute for peace. i also killed karl franz as he was returning from fighting chaos like the coward i am! got a vicious assassin vampire hero marauding around killing who she likes too. time to feast on empire flesh i think.

blackwave

blackwave wrote: »

I've been playing as chaos, it's been fun rampaging through the southlands razing towns as I go. I have the destroyed Kislev and the Empire on it's knee's atm, but I signed a NAP with the vampire counts as they were quite strong and I didn't want to be fighting two front's. However while I was busy stomping the Empire, the VC's have been merrily rebuilding the towns that I razed and are now a massive threat to me and are close to cutting off my main horde from my two smaller ones. So I reckon I will have to leave the empire alone and declare war on the VC's and try eliminate them before the empire gets a chance to regroup which is a big ask. It's been great fun though as campaign, the Chaos Chosen are tough SOB's very rarely break and will fight to the bitter end. Would really recommend them for a playthrough but it is very tough at the beginning and when you raise your second horde in particular.

So I put a temporary halt to plans on destroying the Empire afterwards and decided to go after the VC's. I broke my NAP with the Vampire Count's and positioned my three armies to quickly crush their Northern expansion. I then declared war and then swooped in, I think I timed my attack perfectly as they had over extended themselves in their greed to take over the northern lands. I quickly tore through them and I reckon in about 6 turns I had them penned back in their homeland of Sylvania. Here's is were things got a little tougher and I actually encountered a lot of resistence but Chaos prevailed in the end and I put the final nail into the Vampire Count's coffin.

As my Blitzkrieg tactic was so effective the empire has not had much of a chance to rebuild, however they did manage to defeat my army led by Archaon while he was resting in preparation to take on The Empire again so I have had to fully restart his army again which is a pain. In revenge I killed a few empire armies and razed a few towns in the process. However Grimgor is now on my southern flank, so I think I might leave a weakened Empire for him to fight and waste his time on while I go put a end to snotty Bretonians who have escaped my attention for too long.

JD1763

I'm currently contending with a level 21 grimgor in my dwarf campaign - it is not fun. My lord is only level 11...

killanena

If there is any night owls like myself who can play between 12am and 5am add me on steam IrishRook
Looking to do a new campaign with someone or just some battles. Up to yerselves
Campaign would be played on Hard and I don't mind if its co-op with the mod or just vs.

froog

froog wrote: »

the tide has turned for the counts! chaos is defeated, not much thanks to me in fairness, i killed a depleted stack which included their bossman so that's something. i now have two kick ass stacks and everyone's afraid of me, paying me tribute for peace. i also killed karl franz as he was returning from fighting chaos like the coward i am! got a vicious assassin vampire hero marauding around killing who she likes too. time to feast on empire flesh i think.

so i didn't actually kill franz he got away. it's a long hard slog in the endgame with VC, everyone hates me even the orcs and everyone is allied with empire so if i go to war with them i am war with the whole world. meaning i have to blitz a few empire cities faster than all my enemies can blitz me, then make peace treaties as i build up again.

taking a break for a while and starting a dwarf game on hard. looking forward to actually doing some diplomacy now.

Dave_The_Sheep

froog wrote: »

it's a long hard slog in the endgame with VC, everyone hates me even the orcs and everyone is allied with empire so if i go to war with them i am war with the whole world. meaning i have to blitz a few empire cities faster than all my enemies can blitz me, then make peace treaties as i build up again.

I'm in the exact same situation. Empire is allied with everyone, so I can't declare war without everyone else getting on my tits. The Orcs are ... so so with me, but they seem to be doing OK bogging down the Dwarfs and I've taken out the Dwarfs near enough to me.

I got around it by declaring war on Kislev, which caused the Empire to declare war on me, but not all it's allies. Kislev only have the defensive with the Empire. They've four stacks to my two, but I've good fortifications in all my cities and if I can take a stack or two plus a few provinces then get them to pay me for peace I'll count that as a win and a means to build an unassailable position.

Now if only the Orcs would get their ass in gear.

Generic Dreadhead

So whats the general consensus on this?

I tend to give Creative Assembly games a wide berth for a few months after release due to bugs/issues/exploits etc

How are people finding the balancing, optimisation etc

Rome 2 killed my interest in the series (I loved Shogun 1 and 2 and Medieval 2)

degrassinoel

Cormac... wrote: »

So whats the general consensus on this?

I tend to give Creative Assembly games a wide berth for a few months after release due to bugs/issues/exploits etc

How are people finding the balancing, optimisation etc

Rome 2 killed my interest in the series (I loved Shogun 1 and 2 and Medieval 2)

Buy it, and the Chaos DLC.

They did a fantastic job on this release. All the factions play vastly different from each other, but have somehow remained reasonably balanced.

The grand campaign for both the Dwarfs and Orcs (long and short) are really well done, chaos literally live up to their name and wreak havoc across the world.

The Quest battles and loot are so worth it.
Equipable loot will do in a pinch and you can even get stuff for melee "Lords" that can cast free spells..

The army and lord levelling system is masterfully done. Giving a true branching of Army skills, Magic and Physical Lord Skills.

The agents are great unless you are their target. They can be embedded and used in realtime with your entire army, their skill only being matched by your Lord(General) and in some cases, surpassing it.

It's graphically beautiful and reasonably easy on resources, much easier than Rome II.

Combat has been simplified, all those fancy formations have been replaced by 2 simple ones, Melee Front, and Ranged Front. However, you can make your own custom formations, lock them in and you're set.
You can also make units use "guard mode" and "Skirmish Mode"
Guard, being that when your unit kills or makes an enemy unit rout, they wont try to keep attacking it and break formation/battle lines. they'll stay put after it routs.
Skirmish is the same as it was in R2, only ranged units can use it, and they will retreat after firing a few shots/arrows etc.. from their target, or if no target is selected, they'll retreat from anything that's a threat.

Flanking is devastating.

Cavalry Flanking is utterly devastating.

Artillery is amazingly good if used right and defended. Think high ground.

Ambushes work properly.

And i've had one crash to desktop in over 100 hours played, and mainly because it'd been on literally all day.

Honestly, it's worth the 60 quid, it really is.

degrassinoel

forgot to add, full mod support from day 1 - there are nearly 500 mods there atm on the steam workshop

I havent even touched mods yet, the vanilla game is great

froog

question - how do i get my army marching forward to stay in formation? when i select all and click to somewhere ahead, the formation gets all messed up.

degrassinoel

when you have your formation setup, select all of the formation, CTRL + any number will assign it that number, and you can just click the lock icon on the left to lock it into position, so when you move them all they'll stay in exactly that formation until you either select individual units or change the group to another number

TheKells

I haven't managed to get flanking working too well, that or the armies I'm up against are harder to break than in previous games. They seem to waiver for ages and then eventually feel okay again. Sometimes they'll rout, run away for about 5 seconds and then just turn and charge back into the fight again! I usually have to kill everyone to win the battle.

TheDoc

New 144hz monitor on route, GTX1070 being bought, think this will be the first single player game I'll pickup to run the new setup through its paces.

Shiminay

Which monitor did you go for Doc? I've been humming and hawing over one for a while now.

killanena

TheKells wrote: »

I haven't managed to get flanking working too well, that or the armies I'm up against are harder to break than in previous games. They seem to waiver for ages and then eventually feel okay again. Sometimes they'll rout, run away for about 5 seconds and then just turn and charge back into the fight again! I usually have to kill everyone to win the battle.

Its harder to break units yes.
I can give you some overall tips but each faction plays differently and will just take you some time to find out for yourself where they are strong and weak.

• Try have your stronger units on your right and left flanks or just one flank if you don't have many as they will break the lines faster and will be able to circle around into the backs of the middle engagment.
• Don't have your archers shooting into melee engagments when your men are in front of them, Try and get shots from the sides and if possible the rear as this will do crazy damage to both health and moral of the enemy units while doing minimal to yours.
• If you have cav, and you always should have at least 2 units (unless dwarfs) do rear charges. They do crazy damage and will nearly instantly route most units. Try bring a unit of light cav to chase fleeing units and archers but don't get caught with their infrantry or cav. You will be able to out run them anyways if you place an order in time.
• Keep your range units safe! They will be very important for cleaning up later in the battle.
• If you get flanked yourself you can use your archers to shoot into the backs of the flankers, they will route pretty fast.

Hope this helps!

pablomakaveli

I watched this the other day and found it very useful. Learned a few things i never realized was there like the about turn for units.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAzA9FmP76U

The guy has a whole series of useful tutorials

TheDoc

Shiminay wrote: »

Which monitor did you go for Doc? I've been humming and hawing over one for a while now.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aoc-g2460pg-24-1920x1080-tn-g-sync-144hz-1ms-gaming-widescreen-led-monitor-gunmetal-mo-022-ao.html

Got a BGrade model for a big saving, should be arriving today

Went with this as I'll be buying a GTX 1070 on release.

degrassinoel

First major update details are here
http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War_WARHAMMER_Update_1

Includes FreeLC for the vampire counts cavalry - blood knights -

Update 1 is designed to add polish, increase stability, tweak AI behaviour, address some known gameplay issues and redress balance in a number of areas. This is the first in a number of updates, which means you may not see some changes you were expecting. For example, while multiplayer has seen some attention in this update, it’s in line for more focussed improvement, additional features and rebalancing in an upcoming update. Many of these changes are in testing right now, and as long-term stability and balance are of principle importance to us all, we don’t want to rush the process.

Full details on the above link

killanena

About time. I claimed to rank 500 on the leaderboards only to be meet by empire demigryph spam or vampire crypt horror and spirit leach spam. I know how to counter both armies with a very particular set up but they press ready instantly, pick a faction and in the last 10 seconds switch to one of the two above not leaving me enough time to put a counter together. Ive stopped playing quick battles for the past week because of it. Just doing a multiplayer campaign with a friend and a few battles with rules.

degrassinoel

I played through a few campaigns, mostly greenskins and dwarfs though, and didnt notice much so i'd guess most of the work done is for the multiplayer side of things. That patch is going live today at 2pm too, so happy days

TheKells

Blood and Gore DLC released now. I do detest that being DLC.

ZeroThreat

degrassinoel wrote: »

Buy it, and the Chaos DLC.

They did a fantastic job on this release. All the factions play vastly different from each other, but have somehow remained reasonably balanced.

The grand campaign for both the Dwarfs and Orcs (long and short) are really well done, chaos literally live up to their name and wreak havoc across the world.

The Quest battles and loot are so worth it.
Equipable loot will do in a pinch and you can even get stuff for melee "Lords" that can cast free spells..

The army and lord levelling system is masterfully done. Giving a true branching of Army skills, Magic and Physical Lord Skills.

The agents are great unless you are their target. They can be embedded and used in realtime with your entire army, their skill only being matched by your Lord(General) and in some cases, surpassing it.

It's graphically beautiful and reasonably easy on resources, much easier than Rome II.

Combat has been simplified, all those fancy formations have been replaced by 2 simple ones, Melee Front, and Ranged Front. However, you can make your own custom formations, lock them in and you're set.
You can also make units use "guard mode" and "Skirmish Mode"
Guard, being that when your unit kills or makes an enemy unit rout, they wont try to keep attacking it and break formation/battle lines. they'll stay put after it routs.
Skirmish is the same as it was in R2, only ranged units can use it, and they will retreat after firing a few shots/arrows etc.. from their target, or if no target is selected, they'll retreat from anything that's a threat.

Flanking is devastating.

Cavalry Flanking is utterly devastating.

Artillery is amazingly good if used right and defended. Think high ground.

Ambushes work properly.

And i've had one crash to desktop in over 100 hours played, and mainly because it'd been on literally all day.

Honestly, it's worth the 60 quid, it really is.

If anyone hasn't bought it yet, you can pick up the main gain + chaos DLC for a total of about €43 on kinguin.net

ahnowbrowncow

TheKells wrote: »

Blood and Gore DLC released now. I do detest that being DLC.

Apparenty it keeps the age rating of the main game down. They can't give it away for free either or it would still count towards the main game's age rating but it doesn't when sold separately as DLC.

It could just be a convenient excuse but it sounds reasonable.

TheKells

ahnowbrowncow wrote: »

Apparenty it keeps the age rating of the main game down. They can't give it away for free either or it would still count towards the main game's age rating but it doesn't when sold separately as DLC.

It could just be a convenient excuse but it sounds reasonable.

Yeah I've heard that but is there a minimum pricing involved? Otherwise they could just charge 10p or whatever instead of the £2 they do charge.

Angron

I remember Dawn of War 2 released a DLC pack for more blood, but I'm fairly certain that was free.

degrassinoel

TheKells wrote: »

Blood and Gore DLC released now. I do detest that being DLC.

ye had to pay for that in Rome II aswell, not surprised tbh

degrassinoel

I bought it anyway :P

Doodleking

The trailer looks super bloody:O

Dair76

Am I alone in thinking the blood DLC actually takes away from the realism?

Yeah, I know realism is the wrong word to use in a fantasy game!

TheKells

degrassinoel wrote: »

ye had to pay for that in Rome II aswell, not surprised tbh

Yeah I've known before I got the game that this was their business model...just pointless complaining on my part. I'm pretty sure it was included for free in the older games though before DLC became the hateful beast it is now/

degrassinoel

TheKells wrote: »

Yeah I've known before I got the game that this was their business model...just pointless complaining on my part. I'm pretty sure it was included for free in the older games though before DLC became the hateful beast it is now/

could have been alright, before sega got their heels in anyway

Varik

I get the blood when it's heavily discounted but it always is over the top, might suit this but the other games having giant geysers of blood is ridiculous.

degrassinoel

the little bit i played since i got that dlc seemed fine

shields and armour get bloody from melee.
artillery if it bullseyes a formation will gib it to bits and cause it's own explosion of both blood, bone, limb and dust.
Monstrous units however are quite literally the most fcuking gory horror film effects you could ever imagine. They produce fountains of blood, and dismemberment with each attack, and righteously cause terror. The Arachnarok in particular was horrific to watch up close, and yet.. i couldnt look away

Angron

Well, the Blood God must be appeased.

killanena

Varik wrote: »

I get the blood when it's heavily discounted but it always is over the top, might suit this but the other games having giant geysers of blood is ridiculous.

In Rome 2 there is mods for the blood pack that make it more realistic.

Angron

For those that have it, what're the forces of Chaos like?

By that, I mean sort of... How well are each of the Gods represented? I've been watching one series where I guy is playing it, but he's effed his start a few times, so he usually winds up starting over by the time the Chaos forces hit so I haven't really seen them properly.

degrassinoel

Angron wrote: »

For those that have it, what're the forces of Chaos like?

By that, I mean sort of... How well are each of the Gods represented? I've been watching one series where I guy is playing it, but he's effed his start a few times, so he usually winds up starting over by the time the Chaos forces hit so I haven't really seen them properly.

Playing Chaos is a lot like playing a horde faction in Attila, playing the campaign against them as they come into the game can be one of three things, incredibly easy if you're playing Orcs or Dwarfs, and incredibly annoying, with anyone else. They can be either easy or difficult depending on which faction you're playing and on what difficulty - i play on normal, so here's my thoughts..

They are strong to start with but they get progressively weaker as they fight - it's harder for them to recoup losses than it is for most other factions.
That being said, if they have a lot of rank 9 units you're basically history if you attack them with a solitary army.
They also tend to gang up when they get into fresh territory, (particularly Empire territory) with one full army in range another, or two others.. which has massive effects on the land being corrupted and civil obedience.
This has a knockon effect of potentially (if not dealt with fast) causing revolts, and even worse, chaos revolts, if the land is tainted enough.

They have a specific faction skilltree to increase unit replenishment and decrease attrition losses etc.. the usual stuff for melee, ranged, arty, cav, etc..

Two basic lord types, melee and caster.
I've not played them enough to go that deep into either tree, but Sigvald the Magnificent's lore is hilarious! So i dropped all my points into the most selfish of his attributes making him an unbelievably powerful melee combatant.. ye know, for when he wasn't admiring himself in his shield-mirror.

afaik Archaon is both a strong Melee and Caster character

And Kholek is melee only.

Ye can recruit others as ye go, but they can be killed unlike the above named ones.

killanena

Kholek is the strongest hero in the game once you level him in the campaign. Ive solo'd enemy armies with him and even seen videos on youtube of him with 1 hellcannon solo'ing a siege. You need to get a good start though to have any chance. If you expand your tribes too fast they will just be razed by the empire factions and dwarfs up north. If you expand them too slow you will face 3-4 army stacks in some fights vs your 1 or 2. Lightning strike is a very very important skill to get on your hero's as chaos, more so then any other faction. (It allows you to fight 1 army at a time if facing multiple).

In multiplayer I find them a very week faction. Their units are amazing but you will be bring a small army because they cost so damn much.
They lack the versatility of other factions.

The too strongest factions are Vampires and Empire, followed by greenskins.

Dwarfs have some great units but they lack mobility and anti-cav. Sure the cannons have anti-large but its hard to defend them.

Bretonnia is definitely not a finished faction, they can be strong verse certain armies though.
I don't know if anyone here plays much multiplayers and fast came face to face with a vimpire hex-wright army.. but Bretonnia is pretty much the only counter because their knights of the realm have magic damage. Has the wrights only take 25% physical damage this is important.

degrassinoel

blatant self promotion video. Ye can see some of the grievous errors earlier on in it but dont do that.. 9mins onward and Grimgore takes them all on, and wins!

https://youtu.be/lLcuN2PJdbM?t=8m49s

killanena

Grimgors lore is really cool and funny if anyone has an interest in WH Fantasy lore. Total badass

degrassinoel

I watched Arch Warhammer's lore video on it, it really is hilarious - it's long but worth it

Nathan G

Big question, is this total war game actually any good ?

degrassinoel

Nathan G wrote: »

Big question, is this total war game actually any good ?

Yes.