The looming excitement that might be TW warhammer II

Most of those problems have been fixed, at least with the New Word races, and the Vanilla magic is so good. I agree that it is annoying that Lizardmen are stuck with infantry for so long, although Skinks are fast enough for what we need early game. As for the Dwarves, I was referring to Mortal empires campaigns. As for the Ritual, Lustria and the Southlands both have 4 ritual resources sites whereas Ulthuan only has 2. Plus you could always sail over and steal Vauls Anvil.

 

I tend to get stuck only being able to control 2. The crap economy rather limits my expansion. Plus, against a high elven faction with 40+ cities 4 are the bare minimum you need to even keep up. In all honesty, not a big fan of other races being able to finish the ritual before me. It doesn't fit well with how TW games used to flow.

And meh, haven't tried the new world with vanilla stats much. My relativly bad experiences in the first game rather ruined that

And it's not just that we're stuck with just infantry and are slow. It's that we really only have 2 types of unit; medium infantry in our saurus, and light skirmishers with our skinks. The difference in loadouts barely matters for their uses (yea, spears help against big guys, but they don't change into a defensive unit like spears normally are compared to mace infantry in TW games). And effectivly only having 2 units rather limits the options for strategy... it's by far the weakest aspect of the warhammer TW games and I wish they'd figure out some decent progression for units. The stegadons are the only unit I've seen in the game that actually has it done well, going from feral to a mounted one to an ancient stegadon. We need more like that.

 

You can probably find some mods that nerf AI confederacy and ones that boost your economy. Have you been more successful with other races?

 

Does anyone have any feedback on the Tomb Kings DLC?

 

It's really good. Only thing I can complain about is that my current campaign is bugged so there are no books of Nagash. The campaign starts are all pretty hard as your starting units absolutely suck. If you have anything more specific to ask then shoot.

 

Gaaaahhhh. I really wish I could play. This looks/sounds like such a fun dlc

 

That seems like a pretty big bug. Hopefully they fix that.

Don't you get a warsphinx to start? Does it suck?

Which legendary lord are you using?

It looks stunning. I'm in the same boat as you. I won't be able to get it until my next computer revamp.

 

Also khatep pronounces khemri with a silent K

 

I haven't found one that works against AI confederacy, and since I'm using SFO economy stuff tends to lead to conflicts. Though the SFO "easy mode" seems to help a bit (lowers upkeep for player a smidge, not really enough but it's a start, and since the AI already cheats with economy anyway it's not like it does much to make the AI any less dangerous)

In the first game I've finished several campaigns, in II I've not had much succes with any. Partly cuz I want to play the Lizardman cuz they're cool and partly cuz I don't like some of the other race's mechanics (not a fan of loyalty mechanics like the skaven and dark elves have).

 

1st its just my one campaign. I started with Settra and I meant the tier 1 skeletons, the Warsphinx is AMAZING and it basically carries Settra through the early stages until you can get some Nehekarian Warrior who at least can hold their own.

@Canas I'm pretty sure that I've seen a mode that changes the AI bonus to income. Also Dark Elf loyalty is very easy to manage with the rite of Atharti, various follower that will occasionally give loyalty to the equipped lord, and Assassins.

 

My first impressions: good, but another total war game

Total War is such a great concept but is badly let down in certain areas. The "battle" part could be the most fun, but far out... Controlling units is a nightmare, the interface is neither simple nor explained. i.e. click multiple units and ask them to march forward and you will watch them go in every direction. Yes there are ways around it, but... eh. And how often are units behaving a certain way and you are thinking "why"??? Anyway... I played Shogun 2 heavily and I am disappointed that zero progress has been made in any of the real simple things.

As per the main part of the game, the turn based map strategy. It is amazing how much they have not changed anything. It tends to work but better, though it is much much much more complicated. I am regularly having to google things like "how do I select the unit inside the city again?" (click the flag). But it is done very well........ except........... it doesn't translate to warhammer THAT well. I mean one japanese feudal lord takes over a town it makes sense the buildings and garrison and population are roughly the same. I take over a skaven city and suddenly it is populated with lizardmen? Skaven take it back next turn I guess they are all dead as now its skaven? Doesn't quite make sense.

Overall... it is "good" but I would have thought the warhammer version of total war would have given them an excuse to overhaul the series better. It is good! But some small changes would make it so much better....

But onwards I go...

PS. Any thought of the ethical considerations about playing another race?

 

This, in essence, sums up Total War for me: incomplete.

A harsher person could say half assed.

They just have no interest in putting time to polish the game.

 

Meh, all those mechanics have been the same since well, forever really. They could stand with a bit of a better tutorial (Rome I & Rome II had proper introductionary campaigns) but other than that I don't really have the issue with it. Pathing has improved considerably compared to older games, far less moments where you're wondering where the hell your guys are going and mostly it just takes the straight line. The only exception being when you want forces to pass in between two rocks or something. Some will opt for going around the rocks, some will pass through with the only indication being how close to the centre of the pass the are...

The only mechanic I really have an issue with is that it's very easy to get stuck on a unit. E.g. if you want to attack someone in their back, or get to the archers behind em, you need to take quite a detour to get around them or risk one of your guys deciding he'd rather engage a stray enemy resulting in the entire unit getting stuck, preferably needing 200 commands before moving on again.

As for the switching population, yeah it's weird and gamey, but I don't think you have that many other options... Most of the races wouldn't subjugate others, and many wouldn't allow subjugation instead fighting to the death or resulting in constant rebellions so it's not like subjugating the local population makes much sense.

The introduction of warhammer has lead to the introduction of magic, flyers & considerably more varied races and factions though, both on the battlefield and on the campaignmap.

Tbh, this is generally the case with total war since steam give or take. The vanilla game tends to be unpolished as it aims stupendously high. As more and more (free) DLC comes out unit rosters and (sub)faction get more fleshed ultimatly resulting in a good game.

In the case of warhammer I think the biggest flaw is how poorly warhammer tabletop translates to total war. The tabletop doesn't have unit-progression. It doesn't make sense to not have acces to say terradons from turn 1 as without them vital parts of your army are missing. And in older TW games most armies did have a functionally fleshed out army, in contrast the lizardmen start with 2 unit types and it takes till tier III buildings before they get other types available. Similarly black orruks aren't meant to replace your goblins in the tabletop, but in a total war game this progression from "weak" to "advanced" is important. The only ones that sorta work are the stegadons, going from feral all the way to ancient. They should've used that model more for other units.

Overal, the game is fine. The more (free) DLC comes out the better it gets and with the entire set of DLC it's probably one of the best TW games I've played. The introduction of magic & flyers is interesting, and the large degree of assymetry between races is amazing. But just like every TW game it has several oddities and unfortunatly warhammer tabletop didn't translate that well. It might've been better if they had just made up their own stuff to actually achieve that sense of progression.

 

Yeah that's my point. Total War lovers are used to them. I remember being well used to it by the end of Shogun 2. I am sure it will take time, but they really need to make a few changes.

Yup that annoys me too.

Another really easy one to fix would be that multiple units part of different hotkeys. Maybe I want my core blocks to be hotkeyed to "1" but then I also want the spears in there to be hotkeyed to 2. But you can't do that. Only one hotkey per unit. Why??

The jury is out for me on these, but I think I will come around. They are quite hard to use and target. I really wish you could set your spellcaster to auto-cast, where they just "do" what is appropriate. It is an annoying bit of macro when you have better things to do with the battle.

Well pointed out. I was just at the start when I wrote that. For me, I don't mind that all we get are skinks in turn 1, and saurus turn 2 or 3. But each unit should be accessible fairly quickly. It is annoying that you are blocked for so long on the fun units of the game.

Indeed, I sometimes think the wonder of the game is lost when you are zoomed totally out and frantically directing battles. I want to be able to see the impact my cold one rides had on that flank charge. But you don't get the appreciate it. I sometimes wonder if much smaller games would have suited the format better. Probably would be in the minority there.

 

The only issue I have with magic users is the proper wizards. They just sorta stand there 99% of the time as they're utterly useless in combat. A skink priest isn't going to be send into combat like a chaos wizard can be. It'd be lovely if those wizards got something to do in between spells. Make em throw small fireballs or something..

Flyers are a bit hit and miss. The proper melee flyers are great. However the shooters are frequently a bit odd. They're a tad too easy to shoot out of the sky and can't fight well in melee. But worst of all, since flyers have comperativly small unit sizes they tend to not be all that effective. 10 arrows/round simply isn't going to kill many targets.. it's a similar issue as the heroes with shooting attacks have. Melee flyers tend to be monstrous and thus hit multiple units with 1 sweep. A skink throwing a javalin from a terradon is still only throwing a javalin. he's not going to send 5 guys flying like a single vargheist can in melee... They'd need to either have mounted cannons or have significantly larger units if ranged flyers are to be really effective..

And I think what mostly just lacks is the progression, alongside the fact that the tabletop puts more focus on smaller forces. The tabletop doesn't have 20 units, it rarely reaches 10. And it's turn based instead of real time. This makes micromanagement much less of an issue. TW is real time, making the casting of individual spells kind of a pain.. similarly, on the tabletop your strategy can revolve around getting the one behemoth in range, the others are just there to get him there. This doesn't really work with 20 units, nor can TW be balanced around that as it'd be rather broken to have singular units wipe out armies here. They should have either taken more freedom or created more original units as opposed to relying on warhammer in that aspect.

 

Putting the critiques aside, it still is fun. Not sure it was worth the money (I could have got a switch for the cost of the video card) but it's fun

I've been getting stuck into the battle mode recently. Feral stegadons really seem to be worth their cost. I don't think kroxigor are. Neither seem to be our Calvary.

As far as the flyers go, I agree the shooters seem to be out of place. I basically use them to hunt down fleeing units, especially lords that are likely to rally.

 

Kroxigor are decent provided you don't make em fight things with spears, then they get annihilated. Both are faster than most units, making them fairly cavalry like actually. Plus their big bulk allows em to actually charge through units towards those pesky archers in the back.

The only thing I've managed to use terradons for is literally as bombardement units provided there's no return fire. Just have em hover over some elite or large unit or cluster if units and just lob bolas at em till they run. That's about the only situation in which I've actually found em effective.

And the graphic card isn't really the fault of the game it's expensive enough with all the DLC and stuff without claiming that for it too Though so far it's definitly worth it.

 

@Canas @discomute I agree with a lot of the criticisms, but I also love this game to death. The unit progression is definitely forced and hamy. Also the siege battles are so much worse than older games. However, some suggestions: I find Cold One Riders to be best as a defensive tool, Kroxigors work best when stacked on top of your infantry as the Saurus and Skinks will absorb most of the damage, Skink chiefs and Terridons with javs are best for poking at single entities like Giants and Dragons, Terridons are great at taking out the AI's war machines as it does not protect them.
Another thing, why the hell does Lustria NOT CAUSE ATTRITION!!!! It is literally the most dangerous place on the planet and the dam warmbloods are just walking around like its a park. Also why is the Amoxon river so small when the Reik river is so big? Also the Mortis river should be bigger then too.

 

Meh, I barely use cold ones tbh, the hammy unit progression makes it very weird to figure out which ones actually function well.

And yeah, skink chiefs and the like are best at focussing a single big unit. But even then they are a tad awkward and weird. Can't say I like any of the shooting heroes much. Probably would like em a lot more if you'd combine em with a wizard. The shootign attack for filling time, the big spells for actually influencing the course of battle. Terradons with javalins are fairly terrible though.. at least the bolas have explosions which are fairly effective to crowded targets, plus the burn helps against a bunch of monsters and tough units.

 

Regular Cold Ones are for infantry and the Spear Riders are anti-large and both do their job but the Spear Rider is more versatile. Horned Ones are your Elite cav and are pretty good as they are fast enough to be used as normal heavy cav. I mostly use Skink chiefs as assassins and money boosters, also their breach wall action is fantastic. Bolas are absolutely better then Javlins. I can't wait for Rippers cause they should be dope if CA makes them like I think they should.