Warhammer Total War: Warhammer 2

[FreeKaner]

Attacking a black arc honestly should trigger a siege battle with unique fort that's black arc's walls and deck. Someone should make that a mod.

 

[Silva]

Considering getting this game. How is it if one likes a challenge as seen in Shogun1/2 and Med1, and don't care for toying with little figures in customes as in Rome1 or Med2 ?

In other words, is this an actual game or just a toy?

 

[Blaine]

Guys, does the campaign AI still cheat so badly that it's impossible to anticipate it or gather meaningful intelligence of any kind?

That's a rhetorical question, of course. I have no doubt it's still awarding itself free doomstacks, transmogrifying worker-type units into small armies the moment they're in the fog of war, building up settlements in record time with no resources, and all of the other things I realized it was doing the last time I played a Creative Assembly game.

 

[Maculo]

Considering getting this game. How is it if one likes a challenge as seen in Shogun1/2 and Med1, and don't care for toying with little figures in customes as in Rome1 or Med2 ?

In other words, is this an actual game or just a toy?

Depends. With respect to the empire management, it is simpler than its predecessors. Where it shines is the battles with the all the different troop types, spellcasters, heroes, and lords. In addition, each of the more recent lords has a different mechanic or start location. For example, Helebron has to sacrifice slaves to stave off age, which results in debuffs to public order and combat. Consequently, sacrificing slaves slows your economy. Another example is Bretonnia, which is surrounded on all sides and gets screwed constantly. You need to unite the land and build enough chivalry/renown to kick off an errantry war.

Additionally, there are a variety of mods to change the difficulty, empire management, and balance.

Guys, does the campaign AI still cheat so badly that it's impossible to anticipate it or gather meaningful intelligence of any kind?

That's a rhetorical question, of course. I have no doubt it's still awarding itself free doomstacks, transmogrifying worker-type units into small armies the moment they're in the fog of war, building up settlements in record time with no resources, and all of the other things I realized it was doing the last time I played a Creative Assembly game.

Yes, it cheats like no tomorrow. I did find that the Choices and Consequences mod curbed some excesses (for a time) with unit caps and greatly reduced replenishment. The AI still grows out of control, but by that time you should have veteran rank forces. Unit rank matters in that mod, because units do not obtain lord buffs automatically, but rather only after obtaining certain ranks. Hence, the AI can churn out armies, but without ranks those armies pale in comparison to a ranked army (e.g., Dark Elf cold ones have a 25% debuff aura to enemy armor, etc.)

 

[razvedchiki]

Even with a lot of mods i find the game banal/boring and generic.
From the grafics where everything looks like its made from plastic to the oversimplified strategic layer and what the fuck is happening benny hill battles.vanilla battles remind me of some sort of dota clone with heroes runing around with bots.
If anyone needs a good warhammer fantasy game he should try the call of warhammer mods for medieval 2.

 

[Seethe]

Even with a lot of mods i find the game banal/boring and generic.
From the grafics where everything looks like its made from plastic to the oversimplified strategic layer and what the fuck is happening benny hill battles.vanilla battles remind me of some sort of dota clone with heroes runing around with bots.
If anyone needs a good warhammer fantasy game he should try the call of warhammer mods for medieval 2.

That mod is absolute imbalanced garbage and crashes every few loading screens. The doom wheel can literally kite and destroy half of any unit with one shot. It also doesn't help that Medieval 2 AI is also some of the worst in the series, up there with Empire and Rome 2. I wish Attila would be more moddable, that's where a Warhammer mod would be working since it even has the horde mechanic. Too bad CA likes to destroy modding more and more, with each new series.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Even with a lot of mods i find the game banal/boring and generic.
From the grafics where everything looks like its made from plastic to the oversimplified strategic layer and what the fuck is happening benny hill battles.vanilla battles remind me of some sort of dota clone with heroes runing around with bots.

I've pretty much lost interest in the total war franchise entirely... And I had so much fun with Rome and I think first medieval once upon a time.
The changes they've made to the combat over the years just made it so much worse.

 

[Parabalus]

Guys, does the campaign AI still cheat so badly that it's impossible to anticipate it or gather meaningful intelligence of any kind?

That's a rhetorical question, of course. I have no doubt it's still awarding itself free doomstacks, transmogrifying worker-type units into small armies the moment they're in the fog of war, building up settlements in record time with no resources, and all of the other things I realized it was doing the last time I played a Creative Assembly game.

A good illustration is the elf faction Tor Elasor in the vortex campaign.

It has 3 settlements (1 province) and would send regularly 3 doomstacks (60 units, all elites like dragons, SM, PG) every 15 turns. As a player, to support that you'd need 10ish provinces, likely more.

Worst part about the "strategy" layer is that the main (with LL) factions have massive auto-resolve bonuses against the minor AI factions, so stuff like the above doomstack will lose to a basic 8 unit garrison .

If you find the battles fun you'll have a great time tho, since one is around every corner.

 

[Blaine]

The funny thing is that even with all the massive cheating, it's still not hard to beat. That's why it cheats so massively.

The problem is that I'd like to put at least one or two of the principles of the Art of War into practice in-game, but that's impossible since logistics and troop strength are whatever the AI decides they should be when you're not looking.

 

[rashiakas]

The AI does not cheat per se, just gets massive boni depending on your difficulty settings.

 

[Blaine]

The AI does not cheat per se, just gets massive boni depending on your difficulty settings.

Yes, it absolutely does cheat. You don't know what you're talking about.

The AI won't spawn a doomstack completely out of thin air in the middle of nowhere (for example), but it will transmogrify an existing worker-type unit that slips into the fog of war into an army stack. That really stuck in my memory, because the campaign AI was caught red-handed doing this in Shogun 2 and there was a big-ass forum discussion about it.

Even if that weren't so, the absolutely massive scale of hidden AI bonuses in CA games are so absurdly huge that, as I've said, it becomes impossible to gauge enemy strength or anticipate them in any meaningful way. Most strategy games give bonuses to the AI, but CA's enter bizarro world territory.

 

[rashiakas]

What the heck are you even talking about? What is a worker type unit? You in the wrong thread?

 

[Blaine]

What the heck are you even talking about? What is a worker type unit? You in the wrong thread?

I stopped playing these games when the massive amount of AI cheating in campaign mode put me off of them. Perhaps it was an agent. I'm fuzzy on the terminology, but not on the particulars of how the AI cheats.

If you don't believe that this sort of cheating occurs in CA games, I'll see if I can dredge up some old discussions for you.

 

[Brinko]

Wasn't that Shogun 2, where people found out why the enemy armies were all bow and spear samurai because they would upgrade the peasant versions? I always thought they did that since the AI recruit logic has been broken since empire and proven to me even more with the heroes DLC making them all rush cav for those sweet cav heroes not locked behind tech.

 

[Silva]

Yes, Shogun 2 AI cheats by getting bonuses in various areas and converting lower troops that the human player haven't seen yet to more advanced ones behind the scenes*.

BUT it does not spawn troops out of thin air, nor transmogrify agents into troops. Blaine , is it possible you got ambushed by an enemy troop hiding in a nearby forest?


*though this is tweaked/mitigated by the most popular mods, like Darth's for eg.

 

[Blaine]

Wasn't that Shogun 2, where people found out why the enemy armies were all bow and spear samurai because they would upgrade the peasant versions? I always thought they did that since the AI recruit logic has been broken since empire and proven to me even more with the heroes DLC making them all rush cav for those sweet cav heroes not locked behind tech.

Ah, that explains why I was thinking that they were "worker-type" units. They're peasant militia. What are peasants, if not workers?

Yeah, I'd definitely call upgrading your shitty peasants into real troops the moment the player's not looking real, actual cheating. That shit goes way beyond bonuses.

 

[Raghar]

Considering getting this game. How is it if one likes a challenge as seen in Shogun1/2 and Med1, and don't care for toying with little figures in customes as in Rome1 or Med2 ?

In other words, is this an actual game or just a toy?

WH I was an attempt to make WH game properly. It has even intros for each faction.

They added Denuvo, and before Steampunks broke it, CA had one year of unrestricted sales with a lot of full price DLC, where they could keep original price. Basically a loads of legal users (because WH was popular) and majority of them paid full money.
Even from a point of view of game developer, I'm glad Steampunks broke it. At least now users have a free alternative. (And with current loads of DLC, it's not only alternative for pensioners and disabled.)

Well, first game sold. Thus they thought, how would we reduce expenses during making of second game.

WH II was much worse.
1. Animated intros were replaced by static images.
2. In case I'd write article about what they did in design, I'd name the problem, they were afraid of unsuccess. This behavior is typical for small children. They are scared of punished for causing what others would conceive as problems, or be accused of low performance.

Basically they thought about people who played the game as about paying customers. And they were afraid of keeping stuff that would cause grievances. They got lord to level 20, and assassin could murder him. Lets prevent assassins to murder lords.
People might be crying when they would lose theirs level 25 lord in fight, so let add ability that would allow a normal lord to be just wounded as legendary lord... Well, I lost two lords one just before he got terrorgeist mount. I didn't spend money to make third army in the area, because I didn't want to overspend by concentrating to the North too much. Archeon was running in South and I would be in danger of losing. Now with "immortal" trait, there is basically no danger of using a lord in hellish situation. Yup you lose units, army, enemy would burn city or two, but lord would get better, and would be kickass again in new army, which would take it back easily.

Players would take that as risk of war. Customers needs to be nannied. (Actually most nice nannies allow much more gruesome things than CA, so it's just a figure of speech not reference to actual nannies.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Xx-kL0rcw
Thre I could roleplay actual warfare. WH doesn't have the same suspension of disbelief.

3. And then we have funny stuff like requirement to have WH I for playing mortal empires in WH II, and loads of DLC.

4. In Shogun 2 combat, unit combat felt more decisive. Maneuvers and morale played higher role. Combat in WH 2 feels like designed for multiplayer. They need time to micromanage unit in real time, and as a consequence combat lost part of the danger.

Of course having monsters, and spells is awesome. So it's kinda draw. 20 + 20 unit limit however hurts. And inability to keep lords as part of unit, well you can do it manually, but lords and heroes are eating into 20 unit limit.

5. They complained about AI not colonizing enough in WH I, but WH I had balanced system where Vampires and similar were more likely to colonize, and chaos invasion created real chaos wastes because only few crazy colonized behind chaos back. They thought they doesn't need to create special economy systems for AI, when rare colonization for free would have the same results as when AI would save money for colonization, and non Vampire/Skaven/Greenskins paid more.

6. They forgot to make selection short campaign, medium campaign, epic campaign for mortal empires. All factions are basically required to conquer majority of map for victory.

 

[rashiakas]

Okay, again: The AI does not cheat in Warhammer. AI gets boosts in base income, growth and recruitment capacity depending in the difficulty seting you chosoe. The AI cannot spawn units out of thin air, wich is why you see armies consisting of only catapults or charriots. The only way to spawn units is via script, that is used in horde respawn (orcs/beastmen) and in the chaos invasion event.

There are various mods that make the campaign AI better/harder, but the real problem is the battle AI. While it is the best in a total war game so far, it still is prone to abuse and if you know what to do there is no challenge in a balanced fight. But if you play on a higher difficulty and use some good mods, the game can be quite challenging and if you like the real time combat and warhammer setting, it is a really good game.

 

[Blaine]

Okay, again: The AI does not cheat in Warhammer. AI gets boosts in base income, growth and recruitment capacity depending in the difficulty seting you chosoe. The AI cannot spawn units out of thin air, wich is why you see armies consisting of only catapults or charriots. The only way to spawn units is via script, that is used in horde respawn (orcs/beastmen) and in the chaos invasion event.

I already agreed with you that the AI won't spawn units out of thin air.

The AI nevertheless literally and actually cheats, well beyond mere bonuses, and you're a fucking idiot both for not noticing this yourself and also for ignoring any and all evidence of cheating uncovered by players over the years. Fuck off, retard.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I don't even care that much about 1 settlement factions regularly being in top5 strength ranking because they raise and support 3 full stacks. Or ai getting completely fixed autoresolve results versus other ai. But as long as it can enter marching mode, burn a settlement, enter marching mode again and escape all in one turn, anyone claiming it's not cheating deserves all the retarded ratings they get.

 

[thesheeep]

But as long as it can enter marching mode, burn a settlement, enter marching mode again and escape all in one turn, anyone claiming it's not cheating deserves all the retarded ratings they get.

Walls/Garrison.
The first building you build in every single settlement.
Might not stop every stack, but certainly the smaller raiding ones. And can still do significant damage against bigger stacks if manually controlled.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

...ok?

 

[Undead Phoenix]

But as long as it can enter marching mode, burn a settlement, enter marching mode again and escape all in one turn, anyone claiming it's not cheating deserves all the retarded ratings they get.

Walls/Garrison.
The first building you build in every single settlement.
Might not stop every stack, but certainly the smaller raiding ones. And can still do significant damage against bigger stacks if manually controlled.

Working around bullshit mechanics doesn't stop them being bullshit. You're right, I could, and did, build a wall in every single settlement to win the game, but forcing that is terrible game design.

 

[Parabalus]

Considering getting this game. How is it if one likes a challenge as seen in Shogun1/2 and Med1, and don't care for toying with little figures in customes as in Rome1 or Med2 ?

In other words, is this an actual game or just a toy?

WH I was an attempt to make WH game properly. It has even intros for each faction.

They added Denuvo, and before Steampunks broke it, CA had one year of unrestricted sales with a lot of full price DLC, where they could keep original price. Basically a loads of legal users (because WH was popular) and majority of them paid full money.
Even from a point of view of game developer, I'm glad Steampunks broke it. At least now users have a free alternative. (And with current loads of DLC, it's not only alternative for pensioners and disabled.)

Well, first game sold. Thus they thought, how would we reduce expenses during making of second game.

WH II was much worse.
1. Animated intros were replaced by static images.
2. In case I'd write article about what they did in design, I'd name the problem, they were afraid of unsuccess. This behavior is typical for small children. They are scared of punished for causing what others would conceive as problems, or be accused of low performance.

Basically they thought about people who played the game as about paying customers. And they were afraid of keeping stuff that would cause grievances. They got lord to level 20, and assassin could murder him. Lets prevent assassins to murder lords.
People might be crying when they would lose theirs level 25 lord in fight, so let add ability that would allow a normal lord to be just wounded as legendary lord... Well, I lost two lords one just before he got terrorgeist mount. I didn't spend money to make third army in the area, because I didn't want to overspend by concentrating to the North too much. Archeon was running in South and I would be in danger of losing. Now with "immortal" trait, there is basically no danger of using a lord in hellish situation. Yup you lose units, army, enemy would burn city or two, but lord would get better, and would be kickass again in new army, which would take it back easily.

Players would take that as risk of war. Customers needs to be nannied. (Actually most nice nannies allow much more gruesome things than CA, so it's just a figure of speech not reference to actual nannies.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Xx-kL0rcw
Thre I could roleplay actual warfare. WH doesn't have the same suspension of disbelief.

3. And then we have funny stuff like requirement to have WH I for playing mortal empires in WH II, and loads of DLC.

4. In Shogun 2 combat, unit combat felt more decisive. Maneuvers and morale played higher role. Combat in WH 2 feels like designed for multiplayer. They need time to micromanage unit in real time, and as a consequence combat lost part of the danger.

Of course having monsters, and spells is awesome. So it's kinda draw. 20 + 20 unit limit however hurts. And inability to keep lords as part of unit, well you can do it manually, but lords and heroes are eating into 20 unit limit.

5. They complained about AI not colonizing enough in WH I, but WH I had balanced system where Vampires and similar were more likely to colonize, and chaos invasion created real chaos wastes because only few crazy colonized behind chaos back. They thought they doesn't need to create special economy systems for AI, when rare colonization for free would have the same results as when AI would save money for colonization, and non Vampire/Skaven/Greenskins paid more.

6. They forgot to make selection short campaign, medium campaign, epic campaign for mortal empires. All factions are basically required to conquer majority of map for victory.

2. is a good change. You can't compete with the number of AI agents, if you attack e.g. Ulthuan you will get spammed by 10-20 heroes from the various factions. Your lord would get gibbed guaranteed, this way your army gets crippled but you can still play. The immortality skill is good to give non-LLs some relevance.

4. How is the danger less if you need to micromanage more? You can lose expensive units to spells/charges in seconds if you don't pay attention.

6. The # of capitals conquered is the reason to go far, and there is a short version for that. For the ones with special victory conditions (like WE, Chaos, Bret) you don't have to see a quarter of the map.

Okay, again: The AI does not cheat in Warhammer. AI gets boosts in base income, growth and recruitment capacity depending in the difficulty seting you chosoe. The AI cannot spawn units out of thin air, wich is why you see armies consisting of only catapults or charriots. The only way to spawn units is via script, that is used in horde respawn (orcs/beastmen) and in the chaos invasion event.

The AI nevertheless literally and actually cheats, well beyond mere bonuses, and you're a fucking idiot both for not noticing this yourself and also for ignoring any and all evidence of cheating uncovered by players over the years. Fuck off, retard.

Tbf I didn't see anything in WH that isn't explained by the massive bonuses it gets.

 

[thesheeep]

But as long as it can enter marching mode, burn a settlement, enter marching mode again and escape all in one turn, anyone claiming it's not cheating deserves all the retarded ratings they get.

Walls/Garrison.
The first building you build in every single settlement.
Might not stop every stack, but certainly the smaller raiding ones. And can still do significant damage against bigger stacks if manually controlled.

Working around bullshit mechanics doesn't stop them being bullshit. You're right, I could, and did, build a wall in every single settlement to win the game, but forcing that is terrible game design.

I don't disagree.
It's just standard for me anyway as I prefer the way of the turtle.

Okay, again: The AI does not cheat in Warhammer. AI gets boosts in base income, growth and recruitment capacity depending in the difficulty seting you chosoe. The AI cannot spawn units out of thin air, wich is why you see armies consisting of only catapults or charriots. The only way to spawn units is via script, that is used in horde respawn (orcs/beastmen) and in the chaos invasion event.

The AI nevertheless literally and actually cheats, well beyond mere bonuses, and you're a fucking idiot both for not noticing this yourself and also for ignoring any and all evidence of cheating uncovered by players over the years. Fuck off, retard.

Tbf I didn't see anything in WH that isn't explained by the massive bonuses it gets.

How are massive bonuses that they get and you don't not cheats?