Total War: Warhammer

My Kroq-Gar campaign continues.... I ended up squashing the High Elves and claiming Ulthuan for my own, and after a protracted campaign in the frozen northwest fighting endless armies of wood elves, decided to have a peek at the oak of ages to potentially redirect my efforts. The whole forest was completely unguarded (!), So I romped through and occupied the whole damn lot which had the added benefit of cutting off all roaming WE armies from future recruitment.

Interestingly, Morathi held on to a single settlement through all of the HE/WE strife, and we are now in a military alliance (which gives me claim by proxy to the very recently re-taken Naggarond). I'm going to try and ride that out by leaving a basic stack of Saurus up there and working in partnership to slowly reclaim all of the WE outposts to keep the friendship hot.

This leaves me with one final problem: The Dawi.

I hate them. Hate them hate them hate them. Thanks to their total dominiation through the majority of the game (I only dethroned them from the number one power spot in the last two dozen turns), they have at least 15 doomstacks that seem curiously tuned to counter me roaming around the Badlands border and up through Middenlands. I need two armies for every one of theirs to fight confidently, and they ferociously attack each and every settlement I reclaim from them until I end up overwhelmed by 4-5 armies full of giant slayers, ironbreakers, flame cannons, and organ guns. This would be great if drawing that many armies let me slip through somewhere else, but they just have too much coverage, and my 24 armies are stretched to their limit defending what I have.

I've got 6 Dwarf-claimed capitals left to capture before the long victory is mine, so I'm considering assembling a dirty dozen lords to blitzkrieg the crescent from Hellpit to Karaz a Karak to Black Crag. I'll need to get a crack team of Temple Guards and Carnosaurs together in each army, which may be a touch difficult while the Dawi continue to siege the settlements just outside Argwylon, but I don't see too many other options at this stage.

My biggest takeaway from this campaign: Kill every dwarf you see. Do not hesitate, make friends with their enemies, do everything you can to exterminate them as early as possible. They are the worst.

Ok, so I'm at the point in my Reiksguard game where the forces of chaos are starting to roam everywhere and corruption is a real issue. So my question, is the Empire the good guys? Cuz they seem kind of master racey.

They are in the realm of the goodest guys in the setting, but that just puts them in the company of a bunch of genocidal lizards, relentless, remorseless, unforgiving beardos, and compassionless, uncaring elves. I don't think there's a single race that doesn't want to completely exterminate at least one other species, so I guess you could say the Empire is not in the worst half of the baddest guys?

Grenn wrote:

Ok, so I'm at the point in my Reiksguard game where the forces of chaos are starting to roam everywhere and corruption is a real issue. So my question, is the Empire the good guys? Cuz they seem kind of master racey.

I was actually thinking about this the other day and my conclusion was that the Dwarfs are the "most good". They aren't perfect but they mostly just want to be left alone.

Settra, best guy.

Part of this game clicked for me last night. I'd taken out the Vampire Counts but their corruption was just NOT going away. Since I'd confederated all of the Reiksguard countries, I had a surplus of Lords and Heroes. So why not send them to the damaged areas and see if they can't help. That's when it hit me. My play style was flawed. At the beginning of my campaign, since money was hard to come by, the only Lord I had was Karl and his squad of mostly spearmen, free company, and on Reiksguard. With that army I crushed local resistance and any enemies. I didn't really recruit any lords until my empire was too big to defend with one army and I had a steady income with a decent war chest. That didn't occur until about 50 turns or so. By then Gelt was available and I loaded him up with troops and an empire captain and he defended the homeland from dwarves and tricksy elves. I never really placed any value on generals or lords if they didn't have a huge army backing them up. I disbanded most of the armies I inherited from confederation due to upkeep costs and the lords just sat there. I never put it together that they could be focused on keeping order in newly acquired territories.

By now my empire was crumbling with Chaos armies everywhere and Beastmen running amok. With only two armies, one being mostly ineffective due to some very costly victories, it would have been a slough to get things back in order even if I could. But I really didn't want to restart the whole game as I was 126 turns in. So I kinda cheated. I loaded a save way back on turn 110. First thing I did was a complete overhaul of my empire. At this point, I still needed to conquer Middenland and Ostland, but they would confederate once Norsca and chaos started whittling them down. I sent every available lord to areas near the remaining Vampire Counts territory (where most of the battles were). I also immediately created my final Legendary Lord and gave him an army to help with the Counts so it wouldn't take as long with only one army. I figure I could bear the cost as long as he gets me more territory. Then came a complete restructuring of followers and banners. Every lord that wasn't fighting got + Public Order and Untainted followers. Add to that, I started paying much closer attention to redundancies in buildings, especially in territories that I'd conquered. Barracks can come down from major cities and Temples of Sigmar can go up in their stead to combat the corruption.

Ten turns after this and I finally feel like things aren't one turn away from flying out of my control. Also, I don't have near as many insurgents.

Heroes are the cheap way of doing this. I've got a couple of witch elves sitting in the chaos wastes slowly chipping down on the Chaos corruption, until I can get back there. I had to pull Malekith out since he went insane, and I hate that trait (which apparently goes away by spending enough time in untainted areas).

Anyone up for another set of MP battles to test stuff out sometime in future?

Grenn wrote:

Ok, so I'm at the point in my Reiksguard game where the forces of chaos are starting to roam everywhere and corruption is a real issue. So my question, is the Empire the good guys? Cuz they seem kind of master racey.

IMHO yes they are on the order side, though certainly not “Jedi” level good guys. You can roleplay being a benevolent ruler by choosing the good options in side quests. For example, choosing to ransom or recruit prisoners, accept refugees, and siding with commoners over nobles. Of course, sometimes this hurts you gameplay wise. You can also keep good relations with the dwarves, high elves and Bretonnia, and play honorably by refusing to stab allies in the back.

I compare this to my Skaven campaign where you are actively hurting your chances if you don’t play like a villian. I always find gold and food in short supply that I always eat prisoners and murder underlings in side quests so that I can get a quick influx of cash. And if you’re not ambushing armies with a 2-1 advantage you’re messing up.

Most dwarves love me. My affinity with the faction just called Dwarves is in the 300's just for wrecking the Vampire Counts. Elves however, have never liked me at all. They declared war before I had even been west of Helmgard. Hell, I personally saved Britonnia and the elves by marching west and spending 20 turns chasing down Mousillon and they still wouldn't agree to a peace treaty. There's no pleasing some people.

Ok, two technical questions for you guys and gals.

1. Can you confederate with different factions? Like, as the empire, can I confederate with dwarves?

2. Sometimes my reliability goes way down and I haven't done anything. I go to war with my allies' enemies unless it's another ally. I don't stab any countries in the back. I don't make pacts with other factions that are at war with my allies. Hell, I don't think I've declared war once. I just react to attacks. But I'll check diplomacy and all of a sudden, I'm very low instead of steadfast.

1. No, you cannot confederate outside your race.

2. Diplomacy can be a bit weird and seemingly disconnected. My understanding is that the player's rating is disproportionately skewed to ensure continuing conflict, and there is a wide variety of behaviours that can affect it (e.g., trespassing, hero actions against allies of allies, trade agreements breaking due to circumstances beyond your control). It seems to be generally understood in the TW community that the diplomacy information surfaced to the player is unreliable (ha!) And can turn sour very quickly unless you are super aware and on top of all of your direct and indirect relationships. The devs essentially intend for you to fight to victory and the game is skewed to ensure that happens (see the 'united against us' mechanic for an overt example of this).

You can vassalize other factions, with certain races being compatible in certain ways. But a military victory, takes into account full alliances as well. And Frankly, you don't want total domination. That would cut off your trade, which is a fantastic source of money. IF you havent already, go out and discover other port cities from other races to find trade partners. If the Elves hate, I dunno, go trade with the Dark Elves. ITs a great way to get some diplomatic points. Trade and bribes are usually how I tilt the game into allainces that aren't supposed to happen, like Dark Elves being part of alliance with man, or The undead teaming with Bretonnia.

https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/to...

Total Warhammer 2 for $26.99. I think that's the cheapest it has ever been.

I dove back into TW WH2 today a bit after a long hiatus, inspired by recent play of Vermintide 2 and ... WTF. Here's how it went:

1) I started a new campaign with Lokhir Fellheart, the most recent Free hero for the Dark Elves. I was in unit setup in the first battle of the game on turn 1 when the game crashed. No savegame, had to start over.

2) Started the same campaign again, won the first battle, and then the game crashed on the campaign map. No savegame, had to start over.

3) Started a new campaign with Morathi. This didn't crash, but I got about 10 turns in and got into a position where I was sandwiched between 2 lords. Despite having better forces, I fought the battle 3x and realized it was not winnable... so I decided to just start over AGAIN with the Kraken hero so I wasn't in an uphill battle at game start considering how long it's been since I've played.

4) Started a new campaign with Lokhir again and this time ran into fewer issues. I got 10-15 turns in and two things happened on the same turn: 1) A rebellion popped up next to my original province. No big deal you'd think, except that the rebel army consisted of 3 bar veteran troops, including elites and artillery, none of which I have access to build myself. Is it possible I lost my entire garrison or something? 2) A neutral faction, about 1 turn offshore with a boat full of elite troops and a rank 35 (!) hero, declared war on me.

Not sure I'm up for yet another restart. Has something changed with the game in the last 6 mos in terms of balance/difficulty? I definitely don't remember it being this merciless in the early game.

The introduction of Vampirates has done some... interesting things balancewise, and Lokhir is reportedly one of the hardest starts now as he is fighting both skaven and vampiric corruption right off the bat in a dense and hotly contested area. The new rogue pirate armies are meant to be painful as well, often beelining for player factions whenever they hit the water so there really is no escape for poor ol' squidface.

interesting - thanks for the insight. I'm gonna go back and try to stick the Morathi game out I guess. Funny that they class the Lokhir start as "Normal" difficulty.

Any words of advice on how to survive the final vortex Chaos incursions? I’m on the last ritual and the Chaos doom stacks are wiping out level 5 cities without breaking a sweat. I have no idea how to beat them so I can finally cross TW2 off the pile list.

jdzappa wrote:

Any words of advice on how to survive the final vortex Chaos incursions? I’m on the last ritual and the Chaos doom stacks are wiping out level 5 cities without breaking a sweat. I have no idea how to beat them so I can finally cross TW2 off the pile list.

Have lords with the lightning strike skill to pick them off one at a time. Divide and conquer. Then fight behind walls. You can afford to sacrifice some cities if it would weaken your overall army structure to go and defend them. What difficulty are you playing on?

Hi all.

I was gifted Total War: Warhammer for Christmas by a good friend of mine. I’ve never played a TW game before (one of those series I’ve never really got into) so any tips on where to start? I’m fairly familiar with Warhammer so I’m ok on races etc, just if anyone has a good link to a tutorial you tube series of anything similar that would be great thanks.

Sorbicol wrote:

Hi all.

I was gifted Total War: Warhammer for Christmas by a good friend of mine. I’ve never played a TW game before (one of those series I’ve never really got into) so any tips on where to start? I’m fairly familiar with Warhammer so I’m ok on races etc, just if anyone has a good link to a tutorial you tube series of anything similar that would be great thanks.

Dwarfs!! Focus on economy, shoot people with crossbows then bludgeon them repeatedly.

Sorbicol wrote:

Hi all.

I was gifted Total War: Warhammer for Christmas by a good friend of mine. I’ve never played a TW game before (one of those series I’ve never really got into) so any tips on where to start? I’m fairly familiar with Warhammer so I’m ok on races etc, just if anyone has a good link to a tutorial you tube series of anything similar that would be great thanks.

May want to check out PartyElite and Turin as they are two good casters. Here is one from PartyElite from a few years back for TW1.

Here it Turin's page to navigate through. Great commentary!

MilkandCookies is also a fun caster who also provides some awesome lore and vids:

Thank you!

kergguz wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Any words of advice on how to survive the final vortex Chaos incursions? I’m on the last ritual and the Chaos doom stacks are wiping out level 5 cities without breaking a sweat. I have no idea how to beat them so I can finally cross TW2 off the pile list.

Have lords with the lightning strike skill to pick them off one at a time. Divide and conquer. Then fight behind walls. You can afford to sacrifice some cities if it would weaken your overall army structure to go and defend them. What difficulty are you playing on?

I’m playing Skaven on hard and struggling to bring enough doom stacks to counteract the Chaos storm, especially if I have to Lightning strike. I’m so used to hitting armies with a doom stack plus 2-3 clanrat hordes.

On a related note, how many armies should I be fielding late game (150 turns)? Currently I have 5 and my economy is stuttering, especially as the northern cities I stole from the Dark Elves get razed to buy me time.

I finally finished my Kroq-Gar long ME campaign (452 turns, nearly all the beards were taken) and jumped straight into a Lokhir campaign to see what all the fuss is about. He is marked as hard in the latest beta which... yeah, it's a pretty brutal start. I went straight for Skrolk after taking the Marks of the Old Ones off Eshin, and very narrowly took Oxyl off the rats as well within the first 10 turns.

The Dark Elves have very few options for managing corruption, so I squashed a few rebellions while chasing Eshin around until they yelled uncle and buggered off to annoy Itza. Then Teclis threw his lot in against me and went straight for my very fragile Black Ark. Luckily Lokhir made it to him first and about 30 turns in I now have the Star Tower as well as a full province to the south. I like the way they've implemented the Arks but that first one is a very valuable trouble magnet. I also discovered the ridiculousness of the spell granted by the Khaine ritual after it knocked three quarters each out of three fresh, full units of Sea Guard in a single blast.

It's been tough, but I've enjoyed the switch-up from grinding dinosaurs against dwarves to the unrelenting assault playstyle favoured by the DE. I've also made judicious use of non-agression pacts when they've been offered to ensure I'm not biting off more than I can chew. I imagine when I break the first (most likely with the VC) I'll get inundated with declarations of war as my reliability plummets, but at least it'll be on my terms

@jdzappa yeah I would normally have 5-6 armies by that point, but I've not played skaven so it could be that they're just more challenging from an economy standpoint. With the lizards I had 6 very elite armies and was still making a tonne of gold. Skaven are rated 'hard' IIRC.

kergguz wrote:

@jdzappa yeah I would normally have 5-6 armies by that point, but I've not played skaven so it could be that they're just more challenging from an economy standpoint. With the lizards I had 6 very elite armies and was still making a tonne of gold. Skaven are rated 'hard' IIRC.

I’ve got 5 but only 3 are what I would consider hard hitters. The other two are mostly clan rats and slaves with a couple of catapults. The biggest problem honestly is food since while I’m defending during rituals it’s hard to raid.

That being said, I scum saved and held off on a ritual to go smack the lizards (pun unintended). Burned Hexoatl to the ground and earned a sweet rare achievement.

When I completed the vortex as the high elves I had 6 out 7 armies all filled out with my most elite troops and all had lightning strike. I think I crushed the invasion in a single turn when my armies finally got near. One key thing to note is they will always spawn the furthest from your strongest position. So of you have 3 armies stacked near a single City and the rest spread out, they will spawn as far away from those 3 armies as possible.

So jumped into this tonight (first time I've every really played a total war game) and, well, it's sort of not very well explained to be honest. I have some odd Goblin army outside my dwarven stronghold that came out of nowhere (it was a rebellion or something that happened after 7 turns despite the game telling me it would take 24) I thought I'd crushed it, only for it to be come back massive 2 turns later and lay waste to pretty much everything including my main force which came back to face it.

Clearly I missed something important. Also, does anyone know why it takes about 4 minutes to load after every battle? I think there might well be a lot here to enjoy, but it's going to have to do a lot better than it's currently managing to make me persevere.

Yeah, the greenskins (Goblins, Orcs) and Dwarfs can travel underground, so them popping out of nowhere is them popping out of the ground. Goblins can be a real nuisance. The good news is you can do the same with your Dwarfs.

As for the long load times before and after a battle...welcome to Total War. If you have a SSD and lower the graphics settings the load times improve somewhat but that delay has long been part of the franchise since it went 3D. I manage it a bit by only playing one key battle if there's multiple battles in a single turn

Budo wrote:

Yeah, the greenskins (Goblins, Orcs) and Dwarfs can travel underground, so them popping out of nowhere is them popping out of the ground. Goblins can be a real nuisance. The good news is you can do the same with your Dwarfs.

As for the long load times before and after a battle...welcome to Total War. If you have a SSD and lower the graphics settings the load times improve somewhat but that delay has long been part of the franchise since it went 3D. I manage it a bit by only playing one key battle if there's multiple battles in a single turn

I was about to say that an SSD helps immensely. There’s also a way to turn off animations during turns to speed things up.

I can understanding having to install a new graphics cards (sort of) to get best performance out of a game. But an SSD? And people Let them get away with it?

Hmmmm.