Warhammer Total War: Warhammer 2

[razvedchiki]

louen and i usually have 3 archers and 2 trebs.

 

[A horse of course]

In general, foot archers are the primary counter to mounted ranged unless you have super fast skirmishers to pin them down. If your archers are focus-firing on their pistoliers, and their pistoliers are trying to fire through the back of their own frontline troops, you're minimizing their advantage and maximizing your own. You will never be able to out-micro the AI at skirmishing, and having your heavy cav spend 90% of the battle chasing light skirmish cav unit is a losing proposition. You can also try swapping out one unit for a Damsel with lore of...heaven? Whichever has the Net of Amonyet. There are also artifacts you can give to Lords/Heroes that freeze units.

I didn't play much neo-Nazi Faith Overhaul in W1 so I can't say how the balance would be different, though I do recall they added better Tier 3 infantry than the vanilla game so your anvil should be pretty secure once you get that. I would also question why you're fighting Empire in the first place - they're far more useful as allies (KFC can snowball easily) unless you going for a world domination victory (which isn't the Bret victory condition). Also if you're playing on Hard the AI gets battle buffs and your own troops take a morale hit iirc.

 

[razvedchiki]

when i write about empire i mean marienburg which fields the same roster as the empire and starts with being in war with louen.
i would like to try another battle mod but all expect the sfo are outdated.
i use hard because with current recruitment/replenisment system you can keep the unit and all its xp even if one man survived.

 

[Maculo]

To add to what Ed123 said, typically I bait the mounted cavalry close enough for peasent archers to get several hits. Even when the front line engagement is happening, I will change bowman target from the front line to pistoleers for quick kills.

I mainly used mounted yeoman archers to ride around the enemy frontline and fire at their backs for additional damage.

 

[FreeKaner]

Foot archers are good at killing handgunners, rest is cavalry management. Don't leave cavalry in sustained combat, move them around the battlefield whenever you see an opening, pull from a fight and charge to back of another, chase ranged units and what not.

 

[A horse of course]

It's interesting that they chose to encourage cycle charging in Warhammer. Back in Attila they actually patched it so that pulling cavalry out of an engagement right after a charge would hit them with severe debuffs and likely down a good number. Medieval 2 was also supposed to encourage lining up cavalry in the correct formation and giving them adequate charging distance to segue into lance mode (though this was horribly bugged, which is one reason cav seemed more effective in Rome than the golden era of chivalry).

I can see the pros of encouraging CCing - it looks good in fast-paced multiplayer matches, for example, and emphasizes player skill over raw stats, but to me it's part of an overall trend towards pushing (e-sports and twitch-friendly) micro alongside spells, time-sensitive unit abilities and so forth over slower, more measured tactics like unit formations, pre-battle deployment abilities (stakes etc.), good use of terrain and generally managing the broad tactical state of a battle.

 

[FreeKaner]

You can pull them out of infantry, it is not instantaneous and you'll likely suffer some loses as they do, because units have mass and cavalry can but has to spend time to go through them. Cavalry trying to pull out of combat with similar speed will likely fail because of this as well. This is also a historical reality and how cavalry was used in real life, they didn't stay in sustained combat. There is nothing not tactical about it.

"e-sport and twitch-friendly" are both buzzwords.

 

[A horse of course]

You can pull them out of infantry, it is not instantaneous and you'll likely suffer some loses as they do, because units have mass and cavalry can but has to spend time to go through them. Cavalry trying to pull out of combat with similar speed will likely fail because of this as well. This is also a historical reality and how cavalry was used in real life, they didn't stay in sustained combat. There is nothing not tactical about it.

"e-sport and twitch-friendly" are both buzzwords.

I don't think you understood anything I wrote.

 

[FreeKaner]

You can pull them out of infantry, it is not instantaneous and you'll likely suffer some loses as they do, because units have mass and cavalry can but has to spend time to go through them. Cavalry trying to pull out of combat with similar speed will likely fail because of this as well. This is also a historical reality and how cavalry was used in real life, they didn't stay in sustained combat. There is nothing not tactical about it.

"e-sport and twitch-friendly" are both buzzwords.

I don't think you understood anything I wrote.

You are saying that the design is focusing on minute micromanagement because it's more fast-paced, flashy and is more entertaining for the observer, at the expense of preparation. I am saying no this is not the case and it's a natural conclusion of the game mechanics and there is absolutely nothing exclusive about being micro-intensive and being tactical. I further said that this was also a historical reality and cavalry didn't stay in sustained combat for long, because their battlefield utility came from their mobility, their ability fill in gaps, flank and charge during battle as it was needed, as well as to pursue and scout.

Moreover, it's a warhammer game, it's rules of warhammer translated into a real time combat that causes this. Why is better to just go around with cavalry instead of stay in one place? Because they have a large bonus to their stats during and after a charge, after which due their relatively low model count, bigger models and relatively inferior stats they'll be beat in sustained combat. Considering that CA made this game while they were on a downtrend and only started adding spectator and streaming features years after the fact, it's borderline conspiracy to say they were aiming to make it "e-sports" and "twitch" friendly, which are buzzwords.

Now explain to me what part I do not understand?

 

[Raghar]

how to beat empire armies with brettonia?playing warhammer 1 with sfo on hard.
i put my peasants/trebs at the center and have my lances at the flanks circle charging,but empire units dont break until they loose 80-90% of its hp.they also field large numbers of pistoliers that rape my mounted yeomen archers and proceed to gun down my glorious knights.

Lol. Think Trebuchet. One salvo from trebuchet when you are skilled can hit even mounted gunners.

Or you can roleplay as Brettnians. Throw sufficient number of peasant archers at them, and when they run out of bullets, surviving archers would shoot them to pieces.

 

[rashiakas]

Filthy bretonian pesants sholdnt be able to beat glorious empire anyway.

 

[razvedchiki]

well total war games were never about deep battle combat,changing combat from some clicks to actually having to manoeuvre your army into position/scouting out the enemy force/actual synchronous deployment (having the option to rush the enemy before he properly deploys etc)/positioning matters will make total war a niche game with the subsequent loss of casual gamers.

also circle charging was done historically,rohirrim style charges were not the norm.

 

[Delterius]

As fey enchantress I'd have a full near stack of grail guardians as soon as I could recruit them. Worked pretty good at all situations.

 

[razvedchiki]

As fey enchantress I'd have a full near stack of grail guardians as soon as I could recruit them. Worked pretty good at all situations.

grail guardians are not in the BOOKS

 

[Delterius]

As fey enchantress I'd have a full near stack of grail guardians as soon as I could recruit them. Worked pretty good at all situations.

grail guardians are not in the BOOKS

yes and end times is canon

 

[razvedchiki]

 

[Delterius]

 

[Raghar]

Have you tried to use pause? That should remove that problem with rapid clicking and other stuff.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Gaius, in SFO Bret cavalry is king. It's all about that anvil and hammer. Let the Emp come to you, then go straight for the gunners/archers, which they'll leave defenceless and finally start cycle charging their hapless infantry from behind. Works 60% of the time, every time.

You also start off with two pegasi units, don't you? I think they have vanguard deployment. Swoop those sons of bitches in to shut down their range, then fly them out again if they try to send spearmen into that melee. Rinse and repeat.

 

[FreeKaner]

Gaius, in SFO Bret cavalry is king. It's all about that anvil and hammer. Let the Emp come to you, then go straight for the gunners/archers, which they'll leave defenceless and finally start cycle charging their hapless infantry from behind. Works 60% of the time, every time.

You also start off with two pegasi units, don't you? I think they have vanguard deployment. Swoop those sons of bitches in to shut down their range, then fly them out again if they try to send spearmen into that melee. Rinse and repeat.

It's same in base game. Hammer and anvil is just how you win easily with any faction that has good cavalry.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I've got no argument with that.

 

[Seethe]

Trebs are pretty shit tbh

 

[Seethe]

garbage in terms of what?

Gameplay. Wh2 brought lots of good changes, from UI to balance.

Unless the turn times really really bug you there's no real reason to play Wh1.

WH2 also removed lord assassinations, and killed all these interesting traits that fleshed out heroes. Of course it had problem with multiple opponents targeting single with hordes of assassins, and it needed to prevent a single character on a bridge blocking whole army.

But aside of that WH I was faster and more decisive. Also it had the advantage of AI not recolonizing burned down wastes immediately, thus chaos invasion looked like chaos invasion. Not like a small army passed around burned few stuff that was rebuild in few years/months, and then become bogged down in Brettonia. That's assuming it wasn't killed by clan Rictus.

The problem with WH2 is that it's less polished, it has a lot of issues and the content came out much slower. A lot of the mechanics are kind of pointless as well, such as Death Night ritual, the Skaven hidden lairs are pointless since the AI is omniscient and you can see the region's corruption by hovering the cursor over the map. But it also fixed a lot of things. You can properly aim spells now, and while some mechanics are pointless, a lot of other mechanics are pretty good. The agent change is one of the best, having Archaon assassinated by some dumb Bretonnian maiden was stupid. The worst part of WH 2 right now is that the base races are still not completed. Like holy shit, Skaven and Lizardmen are in a precarious state. Can't wait for them to finally get finished in 2 months or so.

 

[razvedchiki]

i wonder if a new cpu would cut the long turn/battle load times.
i have a fx6300 clocked to 4.1 with 8 gigs of ram and a 1050 ti,on warhammer 1 first turn is 16 secs on 2 it goes up to 1.3 mins.i clocked my cpu to 4.5 to see if it made any difference and it gave me 2-3 secs.

 

[mwnn85]

A new CPU would have the biggest effect.
The 1050 Ti is still a good card similar to my R9 285.
Wait until AMD launch the Ryzen 3xxx series if you're doing an upgrade - those chips will smash your FX6300 and my Phenom II x4 955.
Probably use half the wattage and generate less heat.
Need a new AM4 board + DDR4 though.
Alternatively you could drop in a FX8350 for cheap if your AM3+ can handle it (ebay, etc)
All the old AMD CPUs suck at single-threaded tasks compared to Intel and Ryzen.

I'd try out the Linux version if you've got a spare hard drive. Ubuntu is easy to use. Install STEAM and run the game as you normally would.
You can boot from the Ubuntu install media to see if you like it - without making any changes.

I don't own Warhammer 2 so I can't try out Mortal Empires. I imagine the turn times would be painful - won't buy until it's 80% off!
Warhammer 1, Medieval 2, Empire, Rome, Metal Gear Solid 5, Batman Arkham, ArmA 3 and more all working incredibly well - through either Proton/Wine or natively.
Got a ton of old games compiled too like Quake (1+2), JA2 Stracciatella, OpenXcom, etc. Plus some stuff from GOG.
Mount & Blade Warband even got a 64 bit release under Linux.
As in my screenshot.

I found the Windows version unplayable - must be due to Denuvo.
Windows 10 LTSC is still a pile of s**t just with less bloat.