Warhammer Total War: Warhammer 2

[Parabalus]

Ali, you do you, bro, but I'm going to skip every battle I can't be fucked fighting after hundreds and hundreds of hours in this game.

I'm not faulting you when the problem is the battles aren't worth fighting from an entertainment perspective. It's just frustrating that 16+ years later we're still having the same auto-resolve discussions because CA can't see the problem to try and address it.

Is it even a problem?

As your empire gets bigger having more less important battles makes sense.

 

[Ali Assa Seen]

I think one possible solution is to make losing armies actually worth a damn for both the AI and the player.
Usually when you lose an army late game, in any total war game, it doesn't matter as you can just build a new one pretty quickly.

I think if it were harder to recruit and rally soldiers, then there would be fewer "trash" battles, more decisive ones and that would allow CA to get rid of auto-resolve, as that mechanic is really just a means to avoid fighting pointless battles the player has no interest in.

Its why I think population should come back as a requirement for recruiting forces, as that was a way of limiting how
many soldiers you can recruit at once. Granted, it didn't really matter as you still saw shit like stacks of urban cohorts, but with some refinement I think that mechanic could work.

It's all about resources and logistics. An army's upkeep should be "held" with it on the campaign map and ideally on the tactical map so it's a gamble as to how long the campaign can be financed and where the gold is coming from and going to. So launching a campaign is more involved than just moving troops. That dovetails with your idea and when a force is crushed you're potentially losing experienced troops, manpower, and wealth. That raises the stakes and gets the player invested in the outcome. So if the opponent's force is possibly shepherding the last of their nation's gold reserves you might want to see that get captured rather than be told it through the auto-resolve screen. Likewise, if your stack of 3 cavalry units is ferrying a wagon of gold to fund the next stage of the campaign - and to fend off a potential mutiny - you're probably going to enjoy seeing your men make a mad dash away from a horde of mooks emerging from the woods.

Ali, you do you, bro, but I'm going to skip every battle I can't be fucked fighting after hundreds and hundreds of hours in this game.

I'm not faulting you when the problem is the battles aren't worth fighting from an entertainment perspective. It's just frustrating that 16+ years later we're still having the same auto-resolve discussions because CA can't see the problem to try and address it.

Is it even a problem?

As your empire gets bigger having more less important battles makes sense.

It makes sense for pitched battles to be rarer but there should be ambushes*, raids, etc. happening as smaller nations adapt to the situation. As it is you never have to deal with diversionary attacks whilst cavalry swoop in and raid your baggage train, or a political aspect forcing (or delaying) a battle. It's also way too easy to maintain a large empire and field large standing armies, but that's another of the smaller issues that snowballs with the others and makes large parts of the games uninteresting.

*I know they're in TW but they're basically the same old battles with different deployment zones. They're where morale should be a deciding factor as getting caught out of formation should be crushing to inexperienced troops.

 

[A horse of course]

Ali, you do you, bro, but I'm going to skip every battle I can't be fucked fighting after hundreds and hundreds of hours in this game.

I'm not faulting you when the problem is the battles aren't worth fighting from an entertainment perspective. It's just frustrating that 16+ years later we're still having the same auto-resolve discussions because CA can't see the problem to try and address it.

Their solution last time was to fuck with the siege attacker autoresolve so that Warhammer players would be forced to fight the shitty siege battles everyone hated. Can't wait to see their "solution" in the next game.

 

[Jugashvili]

I think one possible solution is to make losing armies actually worth a damn for both the AI and the player.
Usually when you lose an army late game, in any total war game, it doesn't matter as you can just build a new one pretty quickly.

I think if it were harder to recruit and rally soldiers, then there would be fewer "trash" battles, more decisive ones and that would allow CA to get rid of auto-resolve, as that mechanic is really just a means to avoid fighting pointless battles the player has no interest in.

Its why I think population should come back as a requirement for recruiting forces, as that was a way of limiting how
many soldiers you can recruit at once. Granted, it didn't really matter as you still saw shit like stacks of urban cohorts, but with some refinement I think that mechanic could work.

It's all about resources and logistics. An army's upkeep should be "held" with it on the campaign map and ideally on the tactical map so it's a gamble as to how long the campaign can be financed and where the gold is coming from and going to. So launching a campaign is more involved than just moving troops. That dovetails with your idea and when a force is crushed you're potentially losing experienced troops, manpower, and wealth. That raises the stakes and gets the player invested in the outcome. So if the opponent's force is possibly shepherding the last of their nation's gold reserves you might want to see that get captured rather than be told it through the auto-resolve screen. Likewise, if your stack of 3 cavalry units is ferrying a wagon of gold to fund the next stage of the campaign - and to fend off a potential mutiny - you're probably going to enjoy seeing your men make a mad dash away from a horde of mooks emerging from the woods.

Ali, you do you, bro, but I'm going to skip every battle I can't be fucked fighting after hundreds and hundreds of hours in this game.

I'm not faulting you when the problem is the battles aren't worth fighting from an entertainment perspective. It's just frustrating that 16+ years later we're still having the same auto-resolve discussions because CA can't see the problem to try and address it.

Is it even a problem?

As your empire gets bigger having more less important battles makes sense.

It makes sense for pitched battles to be rarer but there should be ambushes*, raids, etc. happening as smaller nations adapt to the situation. As it is you never have to deal with diversionary attacks whilst cavalry swoop in and raid your baggage train, or a political aspect forcing (or delaying) a battle. It's also way too easy to maintain a large empire and field large standing armies, but that's another of the smaller issues that snowballs with the others and makes large parts of the games uninteresting.

*I know they're in TW but they're basically the same old battles with different deployment zones. They're where morale should be a deciding factor as getting caught out of formation should be crushing to inexperienced troops.

I believe there should simply not be a distinction between a battle and a skirmish. By that I mean scouts, foragers and lead elements of armies should be able to skirmish with each other and these skirmishes may or may not escalate into a decisive battle. Now I know CA will never make a system like this, but this is what I think it should play out like:

You should have very few field armies. Each field army is a major investment in money, manpower and political capital. If the game is set in a feudal system, it should also rely on the goodwill of your vassals, who would contribute their own forces and who may or may not desert or betray you. Likewise, it should be organized at least into a Van, Main and Rear for Medieval periods, or into Corps in a modern setting. As the army marches, these elements are strung out along the roads and may be several hours' march away from each other.

Now imagine a meeting engagement. As the armies approach each other, you are taken to a tactical map. The tactical map is much larger than your usual Total War battle map and features a good number of roads, villages, crossings, chokepoints, etc. As the eyes and ears of your army, your cavalry corps is first on the field. The enemy is still invisible to you, so you send cavalry in march columns down the roads to cover the different possible avenues of approach. Suddenly, you spot the enemy's own cavalry on your right; they have secured one of the river crossings. You deploy your forces into battle and engage the enemy's vanguard, and send them back across the river. You send word to the other corps that you have spotted and engaged the enemy.

Suddenly, you spot enemy infantry across the bridge; it seems that the main body of their army is present in force. You decide to play for time, setting up horse artillery along the river bank in the hopes that they won't call your bluff. You get word that I Corps is arriving, and their lead elements are starting to make it onto the battle map; however, it will take them quite a bit of in-game time to make it to the river crossing. Furthermore, the enemy demonstration at the crossing may conceal the fact that they have sent a flanking force on the long way around. What do you do?

If you feel you cannot hold the crossing on time and there are no favorable positions for you to hold, you might decide to withdraw and leave it at that. The "battle" would then have been a skirmish and nothing more. If you do decide to commit I Corps, the enemy may very well start to commit more and more forces to the area and the skirmish would escalate into a full-blown battle in which the fate of the entire campaign is at stake. The beauty of it is that there are no artificial distinctions and the battle could pan out in any way in a completely organic manner -- it is entirely dictated by the terrain and where and how the armies met, and how they began to feed more troops into the engagement. This same scenario could play out with foragers sent to gather supplies and meeting the enemy's foragers, which could also escalate into a battle if both sides like their chances. This is completely feasible with modern technology and would only require CA to use their heads a little.

 

[Fedora Master]

Two things I noticed: The Crone Hellebron start is much easier now, Blood Voyages can actually do SOME damage. The AI is fucking RE-TAR-DED however. Look at this. Malekith getting dunked on by Tomb Kings.

WHAT THE FUUUUCK

 

[zapotec]

Wow first time i see the Exiles doing something

 

[tabacila]

WHAT THE FUUUUCK

Did Malekith confederate Malus?
Happened in one of my Dwarf campaigns. They confederated and spend enormous amounts of turns moving armies from Naggaroth to the Dragon Isles and back.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah, that sounds like something the AI would do. It's particularly likely since I've never seen Malus AI do well so as soon as his single army gets wiped by something it's a very high chance to confederate. Confederating Rakarth would also likely fuck them up. And dark elf AIs in general kind of have problems with having too many black arks running around and not enough land armies.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, that sounds like something the AI would do. It's particularly likely since I've never seen Malus AI do well so as soon as his single army gets wiped by something it's a very high chance to confederate. Confederating Rakarth would also likely fuck them up. And dark elf AIs in general kind of have problems with having too many black arks running around and not enough land armies.

Yeah that's what I noticed too, the Dark Elves have a massive hard on for black arks.
What's funny is that Black Arks contribute to faction strength, so you have a faction that is simultaneously the strongest and the weakest faction in the game.

They would really implement a hard cap to how many arks they can field, something like one ark per major port. That should stop the AI from going full retard and spamming rite of mathlaan.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah that's what I noticed too, the Dark Elves have a massive hard on for black arks.
What's funny is that Black Arks contribute to faction strength, so you have a faction that is simultaneously the strongest and the weakest faction in the game.

They would really implement a hard cap to how many arks they can field, something like one ark per major port. That should stop the AI from going full retard and spamming rite of mathlaan.

That's how Lokhir works. Playing him now. His starting black ark is incredibly good since it has a ton of the best stat in the game, movement speed (+30% from building and +20% from a rite). Also gets lots of sack bonuses and you'll grow it fast since you start with it. In terms of going around raping cities and smacking down elf stacks for phat loot it's worth 2 or 3 normal black arks. He still has a hard start but it definitely feels unique now. Worst part is that you need to level Lokhir to 12 to use the black ark rite. The black ark should be the faction leader with Lokhir as a sub-lord.

I think the problem with Malekith specifically is that he also inherits the black arks of factions he confederates. So everyone makes 2 or 3 and Malekith ends up with like 8. Which always makes him #1 strength but does jack shit when the chaos invasion comes from the north on land. Him losing really early to tomb kings of all things (weakest AI faction IMO) is odd but just normal AI fuckups I suppose.

 

[Raghar]

He could be simply in war with too many factions. Enemy on the left, enemy on the right, enemy under him, enemy on big island around... That would feel like a reasonable DE start. When they introduced DE they had kinda kindergarden starting difficulty.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah that's what I noticed too, the Dark Elves have a massive hard on for black arks.
What's funny is that Black Arks contribute to faction strength, so you have a faction that is simultaneously the strongest and the weakest faction in the game.

They would really implement a hard cap to how many arks they can field, something like one ark per major port. That should stop the AI from going full retard and spamming rite of mathlaan.

That's how Lokhir works. Playing him now. His starting black ark is incredibly good since it has a ton of the best stat in the game, movement speed (+30% from building and +20% from a rite). Also gets lots of sack bonuses and you'll grow it fast since you start with it. In terms of going around raping cities and smacking down elf stacks for phat loot it's worth 2 or 3 normal black arks. He still has a hard start but it definitely feels unique now. Worst part is that you need to level Lokhir to 12 to use the black ark rite. The black ark should be the faction leader with Lokhir as a sub-lord.

I think the problem with Malekith specifically is that he also inherits the black arks of factions he confederates. So everyone makes 2 or 3 and Malekith ends up with like 8. Which always makes him #1 strength but does jack shit when the chaos invasion comes from the north on land. Him losing really early to tomb kings of all things (weakest AI faction IMO) is odd but just normal AI fuckups I suppose.

I know that's his gimmick, I'm just saying that the Dark Elf AI, regardless of subfaction, should have a limit of one ark per major port in addition to their rite, to stop them from spamming arks and getting steam rolled on land because the idiots didn't build a ground force.

 

[Average Manatee]

Sacking cities is pretty nice with all those buffs from the ark and the rite

Spoiler

Since this area goes down to level 1 if you capture it I think I'll just leave it alone and sack it every time it gets to level 5.

Also, oddly enough, Morathi confederated Malekith. Never seen it before. Didn't even know it was possible in fact. I've seen the lead faction get knocked down before but usually they just magically cheat and confederate someone else before being destroyed, not get confederated themselves. Happened tons of times where Tyrion is being destroyed and confederates Alarielle (sometimes when its even alarielle who is killing him).

Spoiler

I know that's his gimmick, I'm just saying that the Dark Elf AI, regardless of subfaction, should have a limit of one ark per major port in addition to their rite, to stop them from spamming arks and getting steam rolled on land because the idiots didn't build a ground force.

Yeah I agree, or just make them smarter. Unfortunately probably nothing can fix Malekith confederating Malus and not knowing how to handle it.

 

[underground nymph]

They confederate

Confederation is such shit. Act 1: Eshin and Mors are a dominating powers on the continent. Act 2: Eshin confederates Mors. Act 3: Eshin being fucked by everybody, descents into oblivion. Fin.

 

[Bohrain]

WHAT THE FUUUUCK

Did Malekith confederate Malus?
Happened in one of my Dwarf campaigns. They confederated and spend enormous amounts of turns moving armies from Naggaroth to the Dragon Isles and back.

In my current clan Eshin campaign Naggarond confederated Hag Graef so I never had to even fight Malus. And it looks like every other Skaven clan except Skryre got wiped out, so the clan contract mechanic doesnt do much.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

the clan contract mechanic

what is that?

 

[Bohrain]

the clan contract mechanic

what is that?

Clan Eshin has 200% unit cost on non-eshin units, meaning everything besides skavenslaves and the ones that are hired from the building tree that gives night runners. However, they can do contracts to Skryre, Mors, Moulder and Pestilens to get up to 220% cost decrease for their respective units, on top of other bonuses like increased research rate, passive food generation and whatnot. It also allows you to get diplomatic contact on them even if you havent seen them on the map.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[Dwarvophile]

Does anybody have lag during battle replays ? Everything runs fine in ultra during gameplay, but for some unknown reason I have lag during replays. Could it be that I use reskin mods ?

 

[downwardspiral]

The AR is a bunch of bullshit that wants you to fight the battle.

Isn't fighting the battles the point of the game? It's a pretty big failure that this is even an option. I don't remember many other tactical wargames (Graviteam, SoW, Takeda, etc.) having a skip battle button, certainly not one the players rely on to TW's degree, and they're usually better games than the mess CA churns out.

I am thinking about this question recently while enduring the pain of playing WH2 with friends.
And come to conclusion that TW series is not a proper tactical game at moment.
There is more tactical simulation elements in the early TW than nu TW.
They shift the focus of this series and try to attract the WH RPG , paradox and asian KOEI crowds.
All these games are distinctively different to games like SOW or graviteam series.
I have friends who play warhammer total war, attila and 3K but they seldom fight tactical battle.
Too much focus is put on that grand strategy map painting layer.

And have you notice one thing?
In graviteam series the so called strategy layers is not really strategy but just slight higher level operation level.
The "strategy" map linked to the tactical map. It is not two abstract and separate layers like total wars.
SOW didn't really have a "strategy" layers in the sense of TW series.
The attention to details is on a different level to TW.
None of them try to appeal to the "grand strategy" folks.

Total war in shogun 1 was not meant to be a grand strategy.
But now the focus change, and there is less tactical simulation elements.
More campaign RPG characters and grand strategy stuffs but none of them are very good.
And like KOEI, the only way they can make game hard for those players who keep using cheesing tactics on AI but refuse to play multiplayer mode is to make enemy AI producing endless stacks of armies so those "grand strategy" players have something to beat by using their cheesing method endlessly.

It is not a Graviteam, SoW, Takeda.
Total war now is basically a Japaense style KOEI game, and a very poor one.

 

[razvedchiki]

playing warhammer for the...... startegy layer!!

 

[underground nymph]

very poor one

But it’s fun

 

[downwardspiral]

Most of the games considered to be decline on RPGcodex are pretty fun as well. That is why they sold very well.
They are like guilty pleasure. Seeing pretty animation doing big numbers is "fun".
It just the focus of game changed since early titles and become more of a "it is designed for everyone to have fun" game.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Fedora Master]

That was honestly lame and low energy.
Also Lizardmen aren't exactly a faction that needed more stuff. Beastmen? Oh fuck yes, but not the Lizards.