Warhammer Total War: Warhammer 2

[Axioms]

Allies are trash. All that means is a huge penalty to diplomacy after you eventually have to attack them for their land. At most you can do early game trade agreements. Anything else is a waste.

 

[Drakron]

Military alliances are a problem due to how the diplomacy is set up, like you are playing as Allarielle and military ally with Tyrion who then just declares war on one of you neighbors forcing you to either take the reliability hit for not doing something incredible stupid or end up at war with someone that is likely bordering you in a undefended flank that will just take your undefended settlements as Tyrion will do fuck all and also take a reliability hit if you had a non-aggression pact with then because fuck you thats why.

Defensive alliance is not as bad as I think you only take a reliability hit if you dont side with the defender so you have more wriggling room but its not something you just click accept, the AI will drag you into wars you dont want to fight and you have to be mindful of your neighbors, even if you want to confederate with then they can do incredible stupid shit like playing as Bretonnia and one of those idiots decide to declare war on the Empire that doesnt even have a shared border with then.

 

[Olinser]

Military alliances are a problem due to how the diplomacy is set up, like you are playing as Allarielle and military ally with Tyrion who then just declares war on one of you neighbors forcing you to either take the reliability hit for not doing something incredible stupid or end up at war with someone that is likely bordering you in a undefended flank that will just take your undefended settlements as Tyrion will do fuck all and also take a reliability hit if you had a non-aggression pact with then because fuck you thats why.

Defensive alliance is not as bad as I think you only take a reliability hit if you dont side with the defender so you have more wriggling room but its not something you just click accept, the AI will drag you into wars you dont want to fight and you have to be mindful of your neighbors, even if you want to confederate with then they can do incredible stupid shit like playing as Bretonnia and one of those idiots decide to declare war on the Empire that doesnt even have a shared border with then.

Main problem is there's no OPTION. It needs to be like EU4, where if they go to war and you don't want to join because they're retarded, then you don't HAVE to join, especially if you're already in other wars. You may take a diplo hit with that country, but you don't have to break the alliance and you don't get a huge global penalty.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah the penalty for not joining an ally is insane. It's like going over the infamy limit in Victoria 2 where literally everyone considers you hitler and attacks immediately. Any diplomacy rework should make reliability partially or completely ignored by roughly half the factions and the other half at least shouldn't be launching ridiculous cross-map wars against you (except maybe the dwarves).

That said Allies are great once you and them are fairly strong. Had a Clan Angrund game where allies KaK and Humans were quite good at holding their own and never declared any stupid wars. It works because Humans are very busy fighting undead while KaK are all about fighting Greenskins/Skaven. They'll never just peace out of these wars and leave you hanging alone vs. them and they aren't declaring constant wild wars elsewhere. I rushed over to save KaK around turn 40 and they held on really fucking well against Grimgore and Snikch (holy fuck I hate fighting snikch). I think I had to fight one battle against undead, and it was pretty easy due to how well dwarves defend. KaK held that mountain pass forever against Snikch which would have been hell to fight while I was going after Grimgore and going all the way south to Queek.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

completely, 200% disagree. only thing allies do is drag you into an avalanche of pointless wars too far from you to influence of even care, but will provide you with the random, unexpected stack in the butthole of nowhere which will raze some of your cities.

In beginning — yes. But if you’ll manage to keep ‘em safe and free to expand they’ll end up number one power at mid game. Number one power you’re free to throw at anybody you don’t like.

No, what you do is you wait until you are a few objectives away from victory, see if a friendly faction controls them and then form a military alliance. That is the best way to use military allies.
Actually using them in a war is unreliable because the AI is stupid and it takes too long to move their arses over to where you want them to be.

 

[Drakron]

Main problem is there's no OPTION. It needs to be like EU4, where if they go to war and you don't want to join because they're retarded, then you don't HAVE to join, especially if you're already in other wars. You may take a diplo hit with that country, but you don't have to break the alliance and you don't get a huge global penalty.

More infuriating is Reliability only affects the player, the AI just do whatever and suffers no penalties for it.

I suppose because if they did, they would be completely fucked considering how they dont really care about trespassing or even raiding (apparently raiding isnt covered by non-aggression) so the whole thing only affects the player overall as otherwise the AI would be unable to actually function on a diplomatic level, in fact you can even use that to fuck the AI by give then money to declare a war that screws then over, Reliability ends up being just a number were the AI accepts or rejects offers from the player and a system that just exists because they could not be arsed to implement a proper diplomatic system and you know its barebones when you can see stuff like Dwarfs being in a alliance with Vampires because for some reason they ended up sharing a common enemy despite there being a -40 bias in relations, the same penalty that Dwarfs have with Skaven.

Also if you declare or are declared war you have the option of inviting allies so ... yep, why there is reliability? There is even a system were if you do invite then and they happen to like the faction they can simply reject it and suffer no effects from doing that.

Diplomacy is bad not because its bare bones but the extra step that is Reliability that exists to screw the player over for reasons.

 

[Average Manatee]

Tresspassing and raiding don't affect reliability AFAIK. Only breaking agreements and then attacking within 10 turns, declining an ally calling you when they are attacked or attack someone, or peacing out someone after being at war for less than 10 turns (which is really fucking weird) lowers reliability.

 

[Dayyālu]

Random question for people that 100% the game, as it appears that we have people that extensively played the game here:

What are the factions that gave you the most "fun" and best designed?

Specifically the Vortex campaign. I bought this on a whim, and it's surviving hard on my Warhammer nostalgia despite being essentially a very mediocre TW game and having a lot of problems in the tactical battlemap and the strategic overlay being barebones. But I just finished a "short" campaign with the Bretonnians and fuck, it's fun to roll over vampire pirates with knights.

But there's like 50 or so factions and let's be honest, every Warhammer Fantasy race deserves its spotlight, I'm more curious what people that extensively know the game regard as the "best campaigns".

 

[Parabalus]

Random question for people that 100% the game, as it appears that we have people that extensively played the game here:

What are the factions that gave you the most "fun" and best designed?

Specifically the Vortex campaign. I bought this on a whim, and it's surviving hard on my Warhammer nostalgia despite being essentially a very mediocre TW game and having a lot of problems in the tactical battlemap and the strategic overlay being barebones. But I just finished a "short" campaign with the Bretonnians and fuck, it's fun to roll over vampire pirates with knights.

But there's like 50 or so factions and let's be honest, every Warhammer Fantasy race deserves its spotlight, I'm more curious what people that extensively know the game regard as the "best campaigns".

• Skaven
• Morathi
• Tehenhauin
  
• Arkhan
• Markus
• Repanse

In ME Gelt/Franz, Skarsnik, Grombrindal and Wulfrik.

Most of these have a harder start, when you start rolling and confederating everything starts feeling similar.

 

[Fedora Master]

Stay away from horde factions, they are awful to play without mods.

 

[underground nymph]

Does anybody know any mods that limit number of units in armies? Googling was fruitless so far.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

ctt
sfo

 

[Olinser]

Random question for people that 100% the game, as it appears that we have people that extensively played the game here:

What are the factions that gave you the most "fun" and best designed?

Specifically the Vortex campaign. I bought this on a whim, and it's surviving hard on my Warhammer nostalgia despite being essentially a very mediocre TW game and having a lot of problems in the tactical battlemap and the strategic overlay being barebones. But I just finished a "short" campaign with the Bretonnians and fuck, it's fun to roll over vampire pirates with knights.

But there's like 50 or so factions and let's be honest, every Warhammer Fantasy race deserves its spotlight, I'm more curious what people that extensively know the game regard as the "best campaigns".

Hmm, definitely the most fun and best one for me was Vampire Coast (Luther Harkon). It was totally different from the other campaigns, and it was basically built so that you could fight whatever faction you wanted and still work well towards the main campaign goals, and I thought the final battle was quite good.

Probably 2nd for me was Dark Elves, Malekith was quite good.

Tomb Kings was probably 3rd because it was again, very non-standard, and they play completely differently from any other faction (in a good way).

 

[underground nymph]

ctt
sfo

I mean total number of units e.g. 10 instead of 20.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Look up '40 units per army how-to' on the Workshop, follow the instructions, then instead of upping the limit, lower it.

For those of you that want to go 'holy shit' army size, you can use those same instructions to have 40 unit armies, as per the guide's name.

 

[underground nymph]

I’ve found two more mods for unit capping per army

Cost based one:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1723390103
And based on supply mechanic one:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2097391710

Any experience with these anybody?

 

[Mazisky]

ctt
sfo

I mean total number of units e.g. 10 instead of 20.

There is no way to cap the number of armies with mods, the only way is to alter the savegame with a specific editor that allows you to select how much room both you and the AI have for armies, for example 10 or 5 max instead of 20.

The army caps mods you posted are nice and works well but they reduce the numbers of big dudes in an army, not the numbers overall.

 

[underground nymph]

There is no way to cap the number of armies with mods, the only way is to alter the savegame with a specific editor that allows you to select how much room both you and the AI have for armies, for example 10 or 5 max instead of 20.

The army caps mods you posted are nice and works well but they reduce the numbers of big dudes in an army, not the numbers overall.

Yeah, those are two separate issues. So far I’m finding gameplay with caps for both factions and armies superior to vanilla, though still looking for better implementation of the above mechanics.

I’m also fan of small scale battles, thus was wondering if it’s possible to limit the number of units overall. Seems that there’s no smart way to do that.

 

[Mazisky]

There is no way to cap the number of armies with mods, the only way is to alter the savegame with a specific editor that allows you to select how much room both you and the AI have for armies, for example 10 or 5 max instead of 20.

The army caps mods you posted are nice and works well but they reduce the numbers of big dudes in an army, not the numbers overall.

Yeah, those are two separate issues. So far I’m finding gameplay with caps for both factions and armies superior to vanilla, though still looking for better implementation of the above mechanics.

I’m also fan of small scale battles, thus was wondering if it’s possible to limit the number of units overall. Seems that there’s no smart way to do that.

You can use smallest size in graphic options, I use that too and I find it better. Average soldier unit is 30 instead of 100.
Just remember that monsters and magic will be a bit more powerful in this mode.

 

[Average Manatee]

Just remember that monsters and magic will be a bit more powerful in this mode.

Grotesquely more powerful, more like. Even crappy lores of magic can garbage-bin entire armies. Meanwhile lord/monster combat becomes so random with 1/4th the normal health of each side, whoever gets the charge off will take off half the opponent's health (which greatly advantages flyers who dive onto an enemy foot or horse lord). Ranged spam also becomes even more powerful since you can concentrate just the same amount of archers around a choke point.

 

[Mazisky]

Just remember that monsters and magic will be a bit more powerful in this mode.

Grotesquely more powerful, more like. Even crappy lores of magic can garbage-bin entire armies. Meanwhile lord/monster combat becomes so random with 1/4th the normal health of each side, whoever gets the charge off will take off half the opponent's health (which greatly advantages flyers who dive onto an enemy foot or horse lord). Ranged spam also becomes even more powerful since you can concentrate just the same amount of archers around a choke point.

You can pair it with any random mod that double the HP for all units.

Also every stats in the game is easily editable, i've done myself a mod with very small unit size (3 soldiers for unit and infantry monsters are single entity) and was able to balance in a way that if a unit of 3 soldiers fight another one it takes similar amount of time of 100 soldier unit vs another one.
It's fun to experiment with game editing

 

[underground nymph]

Though which unit size is this game balanced around?

 

[Mazisky]

Though which unit size is this game balanced around?

The developers balance is on large size, which is the default one.

 

[Average Manatee]

MP is balanced around large unit size. SP is just not balanced.

Though I will say that cavalry performs a lot better on smaller unit scales, which is nice considering how shit it normally is in SP.

 

[Raghar]

Random question for people that 100% the game, as it appears that we have people that extensively played the game here:

What are the factions that gave you the most "fun" and best designed?

Specifically the Vortex campaign. I bought this on a whim, and it's surviving hard on my Warhammer nostalgia despite being essentially a very mediocre TW game and having a lot of problems in the tactical battlemap and the strategic overlay being barebones. But I just finished a "short" campaign with the Bretonnians and fuck, it's fun to roll over vampire pirates with knights.

But there's like 50 or so factions and let's be honest, every Warhammer Fantasy race deserves its spotlight, I'm more curious what people that extensively know the game regard as the "best campaigns".

Try to avoid confederations. Also are you asking about WHI or WHII? WHI had agents that could assassinate lord, or kill other high level agents. (When army upkeep wasn't so high it basically prevented to do any agent missions.)
Burning stuff with Chaos in WHI was fun, because there was big chaos wasteland as result. WHII colonizes too quickly.

I liked to have banshees recruited in small villages in WHI, and the caring touch that were traits/companions that each agent could get as a result of successful or failed missions. Yea, when you made utter monster assassin, you could assassinate Kholek. Or I managed to use banshee to assassinate one of these ghosts of Belegar Ironhammer.

I also liked WHI campaign when I used Wood Elves to turn EVERYTHING into forest. Lots of fights and murdering both Bretonia and Empire.

WH II.

Well, it has problems with level 20 enemy agents who even when you assassinate they return and do nasty stuff, because AI has money for agent actions and is using it.

Queek without confederations is decent campaign.
Kemmler is interesting campaign. (Because of starting position and opponents.)
Vampires can be interesting if you like vampires.
Beastmen are bit meh, especially when they added easy way for beastmen to get money without pillaging.
You can try Exiles of Nehek and try fight since beginning for BRUTAL campaign. You can also cancel that nonaggression pact for more different campaign.
Or you can roleplay riding chariots on desert. (Get proper brutal catchy music, and scream SETRA DOESN'T SERVE.)
Or you can roleplay pirate captain who loves vampires.

Also remember, some campaigns are interesting when you do restrictions for a challenge.