Warhammer Total War: Warhammer 2

[Average Manatee]

The tabletop unit balance mod is "boyz will be boyz". It was recommended to be used with the tabletop unit caps mod but is optional.

 

[Fedora Master]

Looted after I autoresolved the very first battle.

 

[Orobis]

View attachment 12101

Looted after I autoresolved the very first battle.

Damn that's nice, never seen that one, i always get like 3 Helm of discord's.

 

[Average Manatee]

Free spells are pretty nice early game when you have a lot of small trash armies to chew through but anything that isn't armor piercing gets to be crap fairly quickly. 3 Helm of Discords on the other hand would be awesome all game long. Base hit chance is 40% so -24/-24 MA/MD means you go to 64% chance to hit enemies vs. 16% chance to be hit. That means multiple units in your army get to open up with a 4:1 K : D ratio in their favor. And I think the way all spells like this work is that as long as the edge of the AoE touches even 1 model of a unit the whole unit takes the penalty. Granted on Huge unit scale you only affect 2-3 units still but that's enough for it to be worth a lot, and on anything smaller its just absurdly OP.

 

[Inspectah]

After failed attempts to make a borrowed version work, including firewall fuckery, I am considering getting the game
Is it Worth it? And do I really need to buy the first game as well Just to play with dem fookin dorfs?

 

[tabacila]

Yes and yes.
As a side note to your dwarf question, there is a chance that in the future CA will do a cross game DLC like they did for the Empire, and bring a dwarf faction to WH2. I still suggest getting WH1 though, since you will get access to Mortal Empire campaign, aka the real way of playing WH2.

 

[AgentFransis]

It's worth it. Now is the time too since it's on sale. (trial version worked just fine for me, though it's somewhat out of date. Try the one from the corsairs cove)

It really is quite amazing that a company that was on pure decline for more that a decade actually managed to reverse course and deliver incline. The game is very fun and doesn't even need total conversion mods to be good like most past total wars. It still has all kinds of popamoly simplifications compared to the more simulationist classic Total Wars (like no navies, automatic garrisons, all armies tied to generals and limited building slots per settlement) but on the whole they work well to make the game more challenging and all the fantasy elements like spells, monsters and crazy units add interest and tactical variety to battles. Also each faction has it's own special mechanics, quests and unique leaders.

 

[Average Manatee]

After failed attempts to make a borrowed version work, including firewall fuckery, I am considering getting the game
Is it Worth it? And do I really need to buy the first game as well Just to play with dem fookin dorfs?

It's very easy to pirate everything else if you just have TWWH2.

 

[Average Manatee]

Can anyone tell me how confederations work with regards to getting new legendary lords? Specifically, if I play Von Carsteins and confederate Mannfred before he's unlocked Helman Ghorst, will I get Helman Ghorst or be able to unlock him?

Unfortunately Mannfred doesn't want to confederate right now even though he's on his last minor settlement with no army and I'm sieging it, so I figure I'll vassalize, wait 20 or so turns for relations to improve, then break vassalage and confederate. But I'd rather not go all that time and screw up getting Helman, if the only way to get Helman is to let Mannfred fight battles I'll restart and let him do that.

 

[Olinser]

Can anyone tell me how confederations work with regards to getting new legendary lords? Specifically, if I play Von Carsteins and confederate Mannfred before he's unlocked Helman Ghorst, will I get Helman Ghorst or be able to unlock him?

Unfortunately Mannfred doesn't want to confederate right now even though he's on his last minor settlement with no army and I'm sieging it, so I figure I'll vassalize, wait 20 or so turns for relations to improve, then break vassalage and confederate. But I'd rather not go all that time and screw up getting Helman, if the only way to get Helman is to let Mannfred fight battles I'll restart and let him do that.

No, you will not. When you confederate you take ownership of everything that the faction has, including active armies. You do NOT get control of lords/heroes that are wounded. Have to wait for them to recruit him.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Would you guys recommend this because of Warhammer or because it is genuinely better than the other TW tiles? I once played Shogun, MTW and RTW and got tired of shitty AI and general suckage, but just saw this getting a huge discount.

 

[Olinser]

Would you guys recommend this because of Warhammer or because it is genuinely better than the other TW tiles? I once played Shogun, MTW and RTW and got tired of shitty AI and general suckage, but just saw this getting a huge discount.

Both. This is warhammer before GW destroyed the setting with the joke of End Time and Age of Shitmar.

But it also has by far the most varied factions that play radically differently, unit's all have different purposes and strengths, and the addition of a huge variety of magic further adds to the combat depth.

From a Total War perspective this is the best game, BUT you have to pick up both 1 and 2 to get the full experience, as you can only play the factions from 1 if you own both games.

 

[underground nymph]

that play radically differently

I’d say there’s not much difference in most of the factions. They all play the same except some DLC stuff. And the tactical depth which is the thing at the beginning become obsolete as soon as you’ll get strong economy.

Though I’d also say that there might be fun with diplomacy: you can gather a strong alliance which can do all the boring shit for you.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's a good game and the reason its a good game is not because of Warhammer but also because of Warhammer. At Warhammer 1 launch it was OK (well I'm guessing since I didn't play WH1 at launch, just without DLC). It became good because Warhammer can sell good DLCs a lot better than their historical games which then meant a lot more support and updates over time that made it a better game.

Unfortunately for CA I think this is coming back to bite them because the historical games can't replicate the DLC treadmill nearly as well. Future historical games will be compared to Warhammer and come up short. The number of people who want to pay $10 for a new faction in Three Kingdoms with marginally different infantry/archer/cavalry stats and a different banner is far fewer than those who will pay $10 for a faction of rat ninjas.

 

[Lone Wolf]

If they're not trying to get the LOTR license, I have no idea what they're doing. Whatever their next big title is, it should be non-historical. TW:WH2 is on ~23,000 players right now. The next closest TW title is TW3K with ~7,000. Mind you, the former has an all-time peak of 72,000 and the latter 191,000 (which makes the player retention and lifetime sales all the more impressive).

 

[Danikas]

If they're not trying to get the LOTR license, I have no idea what they're doing. Whatever their next big title is, it should be non-historical. TW:WH2 is on ~23,000 players right now. The next closest TW title is TW3K with ~7,000. Mind you, the former has an all-time peak of 72,000 and the latter 191,000 (which makes the player retention and lifetime sales all the more impressive).

Gw will tell them to make Age of Sigmar total war just watch.

 

[Jugashvili]

Both. This is warhammer before GW destroyed the setting with the joke of End Time and Age of Shitmar.

But it also has by far the most varied factions that play radically differently, unit's all have different purposes and strengths, and the addition of a huge variety of magic further adds to the combat depth.

From a Total War perspective this is the best game, BUT you have to pick up both 1 and 2 to get the full experience, as you can only play the factions from 1 if you own both games.

Honestly I wouldn't say it's the best Total War game let alone a good one; but it's a fun Total War game and that alone makes it more worth playing than the other ones. Highly different factions, powerful heroes and varied units and monsters do not make for deeper combat or more tactics; quite the contrary, in fact. Tactics shine most when armies are equal and battles are won through manoeuver rather than army compositions and rock-paper-scissors mechanics (think chess). Following the trend of the last historical titles, the franchise moved further into extremely fast moving units in which deployment doesn't matter, battle lines are almost non-existent and you are encouraged to engage in a furious clickfest to activate abilities and spells (literally, in Warhammer Total War) to tip the balance in your favor.

CA have been at it for two decades, however, and have yet to produce a working AI that can behave historically and pose a challenge to human players, and instead of increasing scale and an AI capable of handling the complexities of realistic warfare we've got a stagnant scale and increasing focus on fast clicking rather than deployment, positioning and movement.

This formula makes for a horrible historical simulation, but when you're pitting orcs against dwarves it becomes subsumed in the inherent silliness of the setting and does not stretch disbelief as much as seeing the battle of Adrianople fought by two thousand men on rollerskates. It's not nearly as tactical as WHFB, but it captures the aesthetic and, most of all, it's great fun.

 

[Maculo]

Would you guys recommend this because of Warhammer or because it is genuinely better than the other TW tiles? I once played Shogun, MTW and RTW and got tired of shitty AI and general suckage, but just saw this getting a huge discount.

Both to an extent.

From what I recall of other TW games, diplomacy and the overhead campaign mechanics are more streamlined, but where the game shines is the battles. Each faction has varied Legendary Lords, troops, and magic, which are borrowed from the WH army books. With recent DLC, CA has gotten more ambitious with the faction mechanics. This becomes apparent when you compare the faction mechanics of TW1 races with TW2 races, which has led CA to update TW1 factions, such as the Dawi, Empire, Bretonnia, and Vampire Counts.

As far as Warhammer-lore, you will see strange outcomes, such as when the Dwarves confederate into a single faction, go Third Reich, and attempt to cleanse the continent of life. Meanwhile, my Malus Darkblade campaign stands for freedom (of slavery) against the Dawi tide.

If they're not trying to get the LOTR license, I have no idea what they're doing. Whatever their next big title is, it should be non-historical.

Average Manatee hit on the main point imo - CA needs a franchise that can replicate the DLC treadmill. Hence, I think the next logical step is Total War: Warhammer 40k. Other than Warhammer Fantasy, what else has that level of potential DLC?

 

[Average Manatee]

From what I recall of other TW games, diplomacy and the overhead campaign mechanics are more streamlined

Don't really agree. Yes the earlier games tended to have more options, but they are also often functionally useless. Ohh, you vassalized someone in Shogun 2 and took their heir as a hostage specifically to ensure their loyalty? Still happy to backstab you a few turns later, even if Realm divide hasn't happened. Same deal with Medieval 2 allies even if you married your faction leader to their daughter. Rome 1 famously had this:

Meanwhile, in Warhammer if I have a non-aggression pact with people, the AI usually cancels it and then wait the 10 turns before attacking so that it doesn't get a diplomatic penalty with all other factions rather than notify me of the betrayal with an active siege on my capital by multiple stacks. That's great. The only exception is with the mechanic where someone you are at war with can invite other people to join their war, which seems to bypass this and is IMO just bugged, but you can get a mod to fix it. You can ally people and if you maintain good relations they'll usually keep it and join you in wars rather than randomly refuse, because the way it seems to work in previous games is that even with perfect relations your allies have ~20% chance to refuse which ruins the whole alliance eventually. You can therefore keep a stable alliance pretty much your whole playthrough, maybe your ally draws you into shitty wars, but that's the risk of any alliance. Even races that would normally be fairly hostile to each other can ally if you work at it. In my Isabella campaign I had the opportunity to ally with empire factions because they were so happy at me slapping Mannfred's bitch ass down. I didn't make the alliance because I want to kill them eventually and merely wanted an NAP with them so I could go after the dwarves early rather than get drawn into shitty empire civil wars, but the option was there and I'm fairly certain if I took it the positive relations from the agreement + from fighting the same enemies in war would be enough to keep the alliance going for most of the game. Good diplomacy should give you semi-predictable, semi-reliable interactions and agreements with other factions as long as you jump through the right hoops, which Warhammer does and which previous games largely didn't.

The earlier games had a lot of neat dynamic traits for characters, but in the end none of it really mattered (and Warhammer has a decent number of traits you can earn still). The only thing I miss on the campaign maps from pre-Three Kingdoms is a real population mechanic. Three Kingdoms of course as I've said multiple times has by far the best diplomacy in any TW game and needs to be copied into Warhammer immediately.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Why bother using Snikch "delete faction" button, when You can basicly nuke one faction to hell with Ikit bombs. Ofc it costs a lot (imagine how much it costs to clear whole map after price nerfs) but seems to be more rewarding and fun experience.

 

[AgentFransis]

No, you will not. When you confederate you take ownership of everything that the faction has, including active armies. You do NOT get control of lords/heroes that are wounded. Have to wait for them to recruit him.

It seems you're wrong. I'm playing Malekith and just confederated Morathi and she's now in my wounded list along with a wounded Kahnite assassin I inherited.

 

[Parabalus]

No, you will not. When you confederate you take ownership of everything that the faction has, including active armies. You do NOT get control of lords/heroes that are wounded. Have to wait for them to recruit him.

It seems you're wrong. I'm playing Malekith and just confederated Morathi and she's now in my wounded list along with a wounded Kahnite assassin I inherited.

They changed it to this in one of the patches, very good change.

 

[Olinser]

No, you will not. When you confederate you take ownership of everything that the faction has, including active armies. You do NOT get control of lords/heroes that are wounded. Have to wait for them to recruit him.

It seems you're wrong. I'm playing Malekith and just confederated Morathi and she's now in my wounded list along with a wounded Kahnite assassin I inherited.

They changed it to this in one of the patches, very good change.

Did they? Well that's a great change, the old way was really annoying anyway.

 

[Maculo]

My mortal empires Malus campaign is coming to a close. Free potions are an underwhelming reward for Malus, because I am swimming in gold. 3 masters with the slave decline reduction trait ensure that Hag Graef stays at 100% slaves, and then I just spam khainite assassins for the slave income bonus. You can spam barracks in each settlement to stack the +2 to master level to get the slave decline trait a.s.a.p. Repanse is next. By then, hopefully several mods will update. I will be curious how the modders change Tz'arkan/Malus.

I think Malus needs a little adjustment though. His Sword of Khaine quest is really buggy with respect to the beastmen battle requirement. The faction I needed to kill never appeared on the map and randomly died.

Edit: In retrospect, I will probably hold off until a unit cap mod releases. At one point, Tyrion (with Sword of Khaine) and Alinar appeared with armies each composed of around 10 Flame/Frost Phoenix, 2-4 dragons, and Sisters of Avelorne to take Hag Graef. I successfully defended Hag Graef, but I learned a painful lesson. The lesson being that the game limits how many defending units can spawn at once and the sidelined units will (slowly) spawn as you lose the initial units. In one battle against the Tyrion/Alinar doomstack duo, the game excluded all of my ranged armor-piercing units (i.e., shades), spawning only non-ranged, anti-infantry units against an onslaught of phoenixes, dragons, and Tyrion. By the time my shades finally zoned in, my front lined was already crushed and my lords gooned by various phoenixes/dragons/Tyrion with Sword of Khaine.

 

[InspectorRumpole]