Total War - Warhammer

[Etheric]

Yeah size of army does not matter, it is one food per lord. You can see a breakdown if you hover over the food at the top.

 

One of the best things you can do with skaven is the hammer and anvil with the summoned units. If your main line hits the enemy and you summon a unit of clan rats behind the line and charge into the back of them. It can be quite effective.

 

I like the wizards that can summon more stuff are great as well.

 

I think saurus are infantry and Kroxigors are large, but really not sure.

[Jimmy C]

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.

[Alessus]

29 minutes ago, Jimmy C said:

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.

Which is exactly how it should actually be, since Stormvermin aren't supposed to actually be capable of taking on elite units of other races. They are elite by Skaven standards, but Skaven standards for elites are rather low when compared to the other races. I mean the Swordmasters can deflect arrows and bullets with their swords for fucks sake. But on the otherhand, Stormvermin are, or at least should be since I can't recall off the top of my head what they cost both to recruit and upkeep, cheaper than any other races elite units and this of course extends to all other unit types too. A unit of Skaven Clanrats Spears are not going to win a fight with a High Elf Spearman unit or even a Skink Cohort possibly, but they are pretty much assured to be almost twice as cheap as that unit, which does encourage a more "overwhelm with numbers" type of battle plan than "win with skill" type, but this is where I think the Total War fails the Skaven a bit, as they are also limited to 20 max stacks and the cumulative "supply" costs of having multiple armies running around bites them hard, if they are a player faction of course, since at higher difficulties the AI can simply ignore that safely. I personally feel that they should have given Skaven the unique ability of making something like 25 max stack armies or at least given them a universal reduction to the amount of gold lost to increased supply costs.

 

Also it should be noted that the clan Pestilence campaign is by far the easiest one among the 3 Skaven starts as there are only 2 major factions to contend with nearby compared to the 4 with both Craventail and Headtaker and you have easier access to pasture settlements which helps with the food situation.

[Jimmy C]

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?

[Barristan]

Here are some I can recommend or at least look interesting but I haven't tried yet:

 

- Building Progression Icons - small graphical mod but that looks nicer in the building browser

- Rebanner II - improved banner items in campaign.

- GCCM: Unique Faction Capitals - the most famous capitals like Altdorf or Couronne improve visually with each level. Beautiful work.

- Immersive Battle Banners - nice to have.

- Better Camera mod - honestly can't remember what it was like before it, so not sure how good it is

- Faster end turn camera - might help with your issues too, but not sure it still works.

- New Traits for Norsca - apparently they have negative traits so I picked this one before trying them, they get the regular ones instead

- Region Trading - allows to buy regions from Allies and gift them too. Quite useful to avoid going to war over a single settlement. Pricing seems fair (like 12K for a shitty settlement). As it was an option in Medieval 2, I don't consider it too much of a cheat. I only used it once ever so far.

- Landmarks of the Old World - more special unique buildings on specific locations. I do like that kind of stuff.

- Legendary Confederations - not tried yet. You get all Legendary Lords and their starting settlements for your factions from Turn 1. I feel it has lots of potential, will try it at some point

- Totally Random TW generator - scrambled starting positions for ALL factions. I'm looking forward to trying this one at some point. I picked All Climates Suitable for all Races along with it to make sure you can really spawn anywhere.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Barristan

[Alessus]

Btw Barristan would you be up for a quick battle during next week?

[Barristan]

I'd rather next week, I'll be on holidays. Don't expect much of a challenge

[Alessus]

59 minutes ago, Barristan said:

I'd rather next week, I'll be on holidays. Don't expect much of a challenge

It will be a learning experience for both of us. Next week sounds just fine, do you mind if I record the replay and upload it to Youtube with commentary?

Edited July 30, 2018 by Alessus

[Jimmy C]

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...

[Alessus]

The problem with changing the mechanics for Skaven though could have hideously unbalancing effects on the campaign, when the Skaven aren't being played by a human, since at higher difficulties they pretty much always just have 20 stacks full of Stormvermin and Rat Ogres and Warmachines anyway, with absolutely no problems sustaining them, so if they were given access to more slots in a stack, I can easily see that they'd simply just run all over the other factions due to that advantage. With the same of course applying to Greenskins and if they would get Waagh armies on top of that, then even more so.

 

As for limits to the units that can be fielded in a single army, it could be interesting, but I don't think it would ever happen, because no other Total War has had similar limits imposed on them either, so most Total War players would probably react negatively to such a change, since a lot of the people who play Total War: Warhammer games haven't played the tabletop Fantasy Battle. 

[Jimmy C]

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?

[Etheric]

Yeah trying to stop the other rituals is very hard. In the end I stopped trying apart from sending the occasional intervention force. The final ritual battle is not that hard though, so you just need to make sure you have an elite stack ready to go when they complete all of them. It is a slightly crappy mechanic as it is simplest to just ignore them and win the battle (at which point they are out of the race) rather than try to stop completing the rituals.

 

The battles I found rather easy as long as you have a high level lord and a good army. I think with Teclis had to fight all 3 quest battles before winning the game in the vortex campaign.

 

Mortal Empires is more of a traditional game, hopefully your computer can cope with it!

[Jimmy C]

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.

[Alessus]

1 hour ago, Jimmy C said:

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.

I'd say that Teclis probably has the hardest start out of the High Elf factions, given how isolated he is from the rest of them, with only 2 minor factions relatively nearby, both of which only control 1 settlement and don't seem to actively expand most of them time. Infact as of late I've noticed that one of them usually gets taken out really early by one of the minor Lizardman faction from the Southlands for some reason. Given that you are fighting a Lizardman faction that is in control of 4 settlements at the start of the campaign at least with me playing on Very Hard fields armies mostly made of Saurii and a minor Dark Elf faction that is lurking nearby that tends to declare war and send a relatively sizable army at just after you've defeated the first Lizardman army and try to press that advantage to wipe them out or at least get a little breathing room, the start tends to be both slow and one mistake could easily cost you the campaign or at least set you back good 50 turns and all of that is before you need to deal with the fact that you are probably only going to have one trading partner for a while, which is incidentally the major Tomb Kings faction Court of Lybaras that will most likely expand your way, meaning you'll either be further stymied in your ability to expand or you'll need to go to war with them at some point. It doesn't help that there is also a minor Skaven faction lurking nearby that once you get off your starting province and into the mainland, you'll have to start with dealing Skaven corruption spreading into your provinces.

 

And since you are going to be fighting Lizardmen at the start, Teclis is not going to be able to take on their army lords in combat and is likely to even get seriously beaten by just regular Saurus units, so you'll have to rely a lot on the spells he has access to for effectiveness and once the Winds of Magic run out, only then commit him to direct battle, unlike with say Tyrion who could comfortably be dueling Saurus and Slann leaders all day, since getting rid of them is very important since that is the only real way you have a breaking the Saurus units, since you can't outclass them with your Spearmen.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Alessus

[Etheric]

Yeah I really like the Teclis campaign, done it quite a few times.

 

Teclis is one of the most powerful lords for sure, he has an absolute ton of winds of magic as he has a lot of bonuses there. In mortal empires it is possibly easier as you start on the other side of Lustria.

 

Generally with Teclis you are going to end up at war with one lizardman faction and one dark elf faction and you have to stay on good terms with the dwarves you start next to, at least to start with. IIRC you can get a non-agression pact with them on T1 if you ask, as you start with a +20 from gifts.

 

Then you win a battle vs the lizards, run back and recruit. IIRC you can also hire a lord at the start to get the 3rd city settled as well. Forget how much money you get. Then T2 you can kill the lizard army and take the settlement in your starting region, and settle the other one to get a full region. Using an additional lord to settle is helpful if a bit expensive. You can disband them afterwards.

 

Then get a full region and have to ambush the main lizard army and take their main settlement.

 

Been a while since I did it now, but it is really fun, because of how good Teclis is, even if his start position is terrible.

[Jimmy C]

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.

[Etheric]

My recollection is you get two groups of spawns on the last ritual as well, the initial one and then the 2nd one after 10 turns. Note there is a final battle to win as well after you finish your ritual as well.  Then it is you against the 3 other sides, but they do give you a decent gap between the different forces arriving.

 

Hopefully you can manage to fight the high elf one and then another one a few turns later.

[Jimmy C]

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?

[Alessus]

6 hours ago, Jimmy C said:

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?

I mean the Skaven do have access to one of the most destructive lores of magic against lightly armored targets, so unless the Lizardmen are bringing full Temple Guard, it'll definitely be effective against them and can even put a dent in things like Swordmasters and obviously will be devastating against Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter if the Dark Elves bring them, so you should definitely bring them. And yeah bringing at least a couple of units of warmachines is always a safe bet with Skaven, as ridiculous as something being safe with Skaven sounds.

[Barristan]

Spoiling a bit, but since they told you you have to face three armies... You'll get access to unique battle abilities for this battle due to having completed the ritual, notably a very powerful healing spell and IIRC a heavy damage spell. I say spells but they don't consume winds so you can use them frequently on top of your own magic. Without this, there is no way Skavs can take down three armies in one battle I'd say. Use a solid combination you are comfortable with and you'll do fine. Don't over rely on range as you won't have extra ammo.

[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).

[Barristan]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/835670/Total_War_WARHAMMER_II__Curse_of_the_Vampire_Coast/

 

Undead pirates? What's not to like?

 

Looks rather promising to me

[Borke]

11 hours ago, Barristan said:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/835670/Total_War_WARHAMMER_II__Curse_of_the_Vampire_Coast/

 

Undead pirates? What's not to like?

 

Looks rather promising to me

 

Hell yeah! I'm getting this for sure!

[Etheric]

There is a sale on for the game and the DC

 

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/games-workshop-warhammer-week/

 

The discounts are not amazing (33% for most of the DLC), but if you are sitting on the fence could be interesting.

 

Well TW:W1 for £10.00 is pretty good.

[Bantha]

Been away from this for a long time.. 

The feeling now is... really long loading time.