Jimmy C

Thank for the tips. I made it to 5 turns left but was too tired (it was 2am) so went to bed. I also noticed that Helf are only 1 turn different from me, so I will have to defeat them and then next turn do my own one. Will have to make sure I have 2 op armies in time for this – 1 for each. In the meantime I’m fighting the 2nd round of Skaven stacks and will probably defeat them all with about 2-3 turns remaining, so should just have enough time to juggle it all. Its looking pretty tight though, so I abandoned some of my outlying settlements and have concentrated my forces around the key cities. That way they can easily reinforce each other and I can also do the troop swap in time (I hope).

Thanks for the heads up Etheric. For my own final battle am I only allowed to bring in 1 army? If so, I may have to use a different army to do the Helf’s final battle as my own final battle is only 2 turns later, so my troops may not have time to fully heal. Not sure how I am going to take on 3 armies with only 1 Skaven army though as Skaven don’t have any healing spells and their top tier units are generally less powerful than other races… Perhaps a lot of high level heroes and war machines, backed up by Stormvermin and some gutter runners to kite?

Was hoping to finish off my Skaven campaign last night, but was unpleasantly surprised by the final ritual taking 19 turns. Late game gets really grindy, so I was looking forward to max 10 turns to get the win. I did have some fun interrupting the Delf final ritual though as I first sent in the suicide engineer to cause an earthquake before razing bear island (1 of the 3 Delf ritual sites) with my army. High Elf started their final ritual 2 turns before me, so unless someone can raze 1 of their ritual cities, I will have to do the final battle against them. Its relatively easier defending against the intervention armies as they don’t reinforce each other, so even when they are sitting next to each other you can take them on 1 at a time. Also, whilst the Chaos renegades (or whatever they are called) reinforce each other, they don’t seem to reinforce the Skaven renegades. I actually find the skaven renegades harder to deal with as they often ambush you.

Thanks Etheric. Will definitely be sure to send an elite army to take on the Helf/Delf when they perform the final ritual. I'm thinking plenty of plagueclaw catapults and warp lightening cannons. Teclis campaign is quite appealing to me, although i wonder that it is likely quite hard given his starting location. I may give it a go once i finish my Skaven campaign.

Am much further into my Skaven campaign now. Have completed the 3rd ritual and about to start the 4th. One thing I find though (and it was the same with my Helf campaign) is that because the map is so spread apart it is hard to impede the other races progression, apart from the race right next to you. So for Skaven that means you can take on Lizardmen, but Helf and Delf are so far away that you have virtually no impact on their progression. One option is to make a long trek with an army (you’d probably need 2 to be successful) to the other races territory, but then it leaves you exposed in your own territory. I find this pretty frustrating. And somehow the Delf and Helf seem to be ahead of me in the rituals, even though I control 3 resource sites. I believe there are only 8 resource sites in total on the map and I know that Lizardmen hold 1, so that leaves only 4 between Helf and Delf… So its looking likely now that I will have to defeat both Delf and Helf during their final ritual before I can fire off my one. Is everyone else experiencing this too?

Thanks for tips on the mods. I'm fairly far through the Skaven campaign now and am enjoying it. Just frustrating that you have to manually play every battle rather than auto resolving (given the terrible odds Skaven are given). As mentioned earlier, i feel Skaven get the short straw given the game mechanics limiting armies to 20 units and increasing the cost for each additional army. Instead of swarms of cheap rats, it encourages (almost forces) you to have a bunch of war machine and elite units. Its a shame they couldn't change the mechanic for skaven so as to reduce the penalty for additional armies or else to increase their size about 20 units per army. This also applies to Orc & Goblin armies (especially Skarsnik campaign) although to a lesser extent. I almost wonder that for TWW they should have followed the Warhammer army books rule that limits the number of elite units, war machines, etc., that you can field...

The advice about speeding up the AI turns makes a huge difference in terms of late game playability. Really great advice. Thanks again Zoraster. Can anyone recommend any good mods for TWW2?

I’m now well into my Skrolk campaign and have a much better handle on things. I’ve got 2 warpstone producing settlements and have 4 provinces under my control – all fully developed. Teclis was being a thorn in my butt, raiding here and there and sending boat-loads of troops to attack wherever I didn’t have troops stations. So I decided to wipe him out before I turn my attention to the main Lizard faction to my north. I find high elf hard to deal with due to all their massed archers. My own ranged can’t compete with them and they just kite away from my infantry. It makes for some very frustrating late battle gameplay (after my war machines run out of ammo) as I chase their archers all around the battlefield. He’s now just got 2 settlements left on turtle island, although the main one has level 5 walls and a top tier army stationed inside, so I’m going to have to bring in all my armies to take it out. I still struggle with lord obedience a bit. Ended up doing the rite that gives +2 to obedience to try and keep it in check. Some of the rites are pretty cool. I’ve done the plague one a few times and am going to try the engineer one to blast Teclis’ tier 5 walls. I also noticed that autoresolve really sucks for the skaven. It forces you to fight almost every battle given the crap odds the AI gives you. Although in fairness it seems that Skaven top tier units are generally worse than other races top tier units (at least that’s my feeling). Even stormvermin come out 2nd best when going up against swordmasters of hoeth or even white lions of chrase.

Thanks for the tips. So it doesn't matter how large your armies are in terms of food consumed? 1 army = 1 food, regardless of size? Started a new game and am doing pretty well. Hold 3 provinces and the capitals of 2 others (although my friends the Tomb Kings annoyingly captured the minor settlements). I still have trouble with loyalty for my higher level lord. Ended up replacing him for a more loyal lord at one stage when his loyalty went down too far. But brought him back when i was ready to fight a few battles and in the meantime managed to get Skrolk leveled much higher. Do Sauruses count as large or infantry? Trying to work out if its better to use Halberd or sword stormvermin against them.

Didn't know that @Zoraster. Thanks for the info - its a great help! Finished my Helf campaign last night, although not in the way I wanted. Delf beat me to the final rite. I entered the battle to stop them with a 2nd grade army (not so bad, but not my best army either) and not realising that there would be reinforcements. As the Delf had a heap of ranged and I had very little, I charged them and went toe to toe, but was overwhelmed before the reinforcements made it to the front line. Very disappointing end. So then I fired up a Skaven campaign. Did well for the first 20 or 30 turns and then got absolutely boned by all the weird mechanics for Skaven, which I don’t particularly understand. I had a lot of trouble fighting Saurus – Skaven just don’t seem to have anything able to take them down in early game and also the Lizardmen lords, which can tank a lot of damage. Then I got a warning that my 2nd lord was going to rebel, so I followed the advice and game him new recruits and got him to fight lots of battles. This worked a bit, but then he became much higher level than my legendary lord, which I found out was a bad thing. Then I had a bad food rating which I understand affects public order and army morale. And then, just as I was being attacked by both the northern Lizardmen and southern ones, my 2nd leader rebelled and that was basically game over. Some tips about Skaven would be appreciated. I’m confused by several things: 1. the food mechanic – my understanding is that its bad to expand quickly as each city uses food. Is that right? Also armies use food? How do you balance it? 2. Corruption – didn’t really come into it in the last game, but can I understand that Skaven corruption is bad as it lowers public order? How do you manage it? 3. Lord rebellions – any tips on how to manage this effectively? It mentions you can give gifts to your lords, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that. 4. How should Skaven be played? Are they similar to Orcs that you should always be attacking? Should you be colonising settlements or is it better to just sack and raze? 5. How do you deal with Saurus and Lizardmen lords early on?

I’m wondering that the best idea to limit the AI turn time might be to just limit yourself to non-aggression pacts and military access. I think that if you have a defensive/military alliance then it will show you everything that goes on in that factions territory, thereby significantly increasing the time between each of your turns. I don’t think that non-aggression pacts give you vision over that factions territory. So best to leave it there. Although you will get the annoying prompts from them most turns asking to enter into alliances, so perhaps it evens out in terms of time between your turns…

Just performed the 2nd last vortex ritual. It was harder to defend this one mainly due to the skaven swarms that appeared and were able to ambush me even though it was their turn (and they got reinforcements, but i didn't)?? I'm guessing this is a Skaven special ability and it definitely caught me by surprise. I have to say that the game has turned into a massive grind. Worst of all is waiting between turns. Partly my own fault as I just turtled up on Ulthan, but as I have lots of alliances around the world I now spend most of my time waiting for the AI turn to end. Great tip from Etheric about being able to speed it up, but even with the fast forward button pressed (and you have to manually press it every turn), it still takes ages. I spend about 20% of playtime in my turn and 80% waiting for AI turn. Urgh… I want to finish it though, so am persevering for the moment. Am keen to try either Skaven or Lizardmen next.

I'd be up for the MP battles, but i dont have the time to watch "lets play" youtube videos. When TWW first came out i used to enjoy watching heir of carthage's MP battles, but I never watched his campaign walkthroughs due to lack of time.

Thanks for the info Etheric. My economy is crazy good. I’ve got about 200k gold and earning 15k per turn. So I sent a “medium” intervention force (5k) against the Lizardmen, who are quite a bit ahead of me and the Delf. It got wiped out pretty quick, so next time I will send the expensive 10k one. I also plan to raise and send an army to attack the Lizards, although its going to take ages to reach them given the vast distances over the ocean. Regarding shards, I got the Caledor one to the west quite early. The Shrine of Khaine one is held by my main Ally with whom I have a military alliance. I don’t seem to have any option to ask them to confederate (perhaps because of the alliance or maybe because they are stronger than me?). They are to the north and west of me and control all the gates, so would love to be able to confederate with them just to get their gates. The other main faction holds the north/east outer ring and would confederate with me, but I don’t see any need to as it would just expose more of my cities to attack. One problem I realised with playing as High Elves is that because of the tech that allows you to see all ports, the time between turns takes ages as you see what’s going on all over the map. The other problem is that due to the large distances over the sea, it is time consuming sending armies outside of Ulthuan and really hard to reinforce them when they are raiding other lands. I’m liking the campaign a lot though. Its good fun and I’m looking forward to the 3rd ritual where I will hopefully face a more challenging intervention from Chaos/others.

I don’t have any expansions. Just the standard TWW2. Did my 2nd ritual and it was just as easy as the first one, except that 1 turn into the ritual a Dark elf army randomly spawned next to an undefended city (it had been defended, but I moved my forces out of it to go and attack the Chaos puppets). Very annoying that it just spawned and instantly razed the city. I recall when the first enemy race started their ritual I had an option to pay money to send a mercenary army to attack them. So I assume that is what happened to me. Whenever the other races start their rituals now I no longer seem to get the option to pay money to get an army to attack them. Any idea how to do it? It just gave me that option the very first time in the game that the other race started their ritual. I now occupy the entire inland sea area and am friends with all the High Elves on the seaward sides. It seems like an easily defendable position and I don’t have any compulsion to confederate with the other High Elves, as it would be much harder to defend. It is somewhat boring though just turtling up, so I might send a couple of armies to raid Naggaroth once I have performed the 3rd ritual (I don’t have enough wayshards yet). By the way, how do you get wayshards? I seem to just produce small amounts of them from my territories. Any other way to get them though?