Warhammer Total War: Warhammer 2

[Parabalus]

I guess I was playing too much a "Rome Total War" mindset. Since they were (relatively) cheap, I only went with bigger unit such as knights. But they didn't seem to impact the AR and morale as much.

I have played through the Repanse campaign on Leg recently and had 4-5 peasents (+treb) and 15 knights in the beginning and afterwards - you don't have much of a choice whom to recruit since you start with the special knight docks.

By flanking with cavalry you can draw the AI out and split their stacks, it's very effective vs TKs.

Yes I did win the first one easily (I sure hope, I was playing easy !). So what you are saying is that harrassing and constant pressure is more of a tactic in this game ? Or is it specific to the Bretonnians ?

For basically every race you never want to sit and turtle, trying to take at least one new region per turn. The AI has bonuses and will outproduce you.

Also don't expect to kill leaders quickly with units. Even very strong cavalry or infantry simply can't deal damage quickly to single entity units.

Gooning enemy lords is a usually a good strategy, in the Repanse campaign her and henri can make quick work of an enemy lord.

 

[Kaldurenik]

So what are some fun / interesting start factions / leaders for the Mortal Empires?

 

[Maculo]

I downloaded Packet File Manager to look at how this game is coded/organized, and I have gained more respect for the modders. It appears CA just copied and pasted Khalida's climate bonus and gave it to Malus. Similarly, Sigvald seems to have a Bretonnia tech armor bonus (i.e., the bonus he gives to agents). It has so many weird designations.

Personally, I am not even certain what I would change. For example, I figured out how to give Malus Tzarkan at 1 possession point and to change the sanity bonuses, but to what? The possession meter is kind of weird to begin with.

So what are some fun / interesting start factions / leaders for the Mortal Empires?

Depends on what you are looking for imo. For example, do you want a super-op lord that can solo armies, if so then Tyrion, Malekith, Ikkit, etc. Personally, my favorite are:

1. Bretonnia. I find the updated technology tree, vow system, and permanent Green Knight to be awesome. You can take Marienburg (as Louen), crusade Norsca, build a forge in each settlement (cumulative faction armor bonus on knights for each forge) and can farm Ikkit for the research bonus trait (10% research rate for each lord that kills him). Another reason I like Bretonnia is that you can focus on cavalry, air-force (well, flying cavalry), infantry zerg, agent spam, or magic with decent outcomes.
2. Malus. Malus is divisive, either people love the campaign or hate it. Personally, I view it as a survival campaign. Unlike the other DE lords, he is surrounded by potential enemies (Tomb Kings, Greenskins, Skaven, Dwarves). The Dawi tide is no joke until it is fixed. Furthermore, Malus is not as straight forward powerful as other lords (i.e., Malekith), which is a bonus imo. Full possession (40% wardsave, Tzarkan) may require some planning and some of the stronger followers and items (e.g., constant soul steal dagger) appear at random.
3. Gelt/Golden Order. I just like this lord, no overly complicated reasoning on this one.

 

[AgentFransis]

Try vampire counts. Lots of cool lords and heroes, great units, you can raise the dead after big battles and everybody hates you so you'll be at war with most of your neighbors.

Similarly with Skaven, one of the coolest factions in the game. Expand the under empire to extort money and steal food from everyone. Crush your enemies with crazy ranged weaponry, rolling tanks and rat ninjas. Build a nuke under your enemy's capital and blow it up.

 

[Average Manatee]

I downloaded Packet File Manager to look at how this game is coded/organized, and I have gained more respect for the modders. It appears CA just copied and pasted Khalida's climate bonus and gave it to Malus. Similarly, Sigvald seems to have a Bretonnia tech armor bonus (i.e., the bonus he gives to agents). It has so many weird designations.

Yeah, I looked at it once and it was a complete clusterfuck. On top of being badly organized with random shit poorly named everywhere, you have repurposed modifiers and designations dating back from what I assume is Rome 2.

Personally, I am not even certain what I would change. For example, I figured out how to give Malus Tzarkan at 1 possession point and to change the sanity bonuses, but to what? The possession meter is kind of weird to begin with.

Up to -10 Melee attack -15% ranged damage at max sanity, up to +10 melee attack +15% ranged damaged at max possession?

Also change it back to give -contruction cost rather than +growth of course.

 

[Maculo]

Yeah, I looked at it once and it was a complete clusterfuck. On top of being badly organized with random shit poorly named everywhere, you have repurposed modifiers and designations dating back from what I assume is Rome 2.

Up to -10 Melee attack -15% ranged damage at max sanity, up to +10 melee attack +15% ranged damaged at max possession?

Also change it back to give -contruction cost rather than +growth of course.

The naming conventions are just tedious. It is a drop down menu that just goes on forever, and I have not figured out a way to easily filter or search it.

effect_bundle_force_all_battle_armour
effect_bundle_battle_Bretonnia_armour_tech_lords_all_
effect_bundle_force_agent_movement_speed
faction_to_force_own
faction_to_force_general_to_own
faction_to_general_to_force_own


As for Malus, I will check ranged damage modifiers, because I do not recall seeing it (yet). I also went down the rabbit hole of what would be more thematic, as opposed to what would actually positive effect on gameplay. For example, what if full sanity would reward faction-wide buffs (melee attack, recruitment cost reduction, etc.), whereas full possession would be more selfish and just buff Malus' army (Tzarkan, weapon strength and movement speed bonus for his army, etc.). Alternatively, what if full possession threshold was just really powerful all around, but I disabled possession each turn, meaning you could only reach full possession via Tzarkan's Whisper quests. It was a "great, but now what" moment.

I will definitely check out a range modifiers when I get the opportunity though. Inserting construction back in does not seem hard though. Granted, I need to test the build as well.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

So what are some fun / interesting start factions / leaders for the Mortal Empires?

Norsca have really cool units. Also different playstyle, you have a raiding economy where you run a deficit and rely upon getting dat big sack of some unfortunate southerner

PS. Don't pick frigistrex for your first monster hunt as that thing is bugged to hell and back and can cancel the entire monster hunt questline

 

[AgentFransis]

Do any of the mods help the campaign balance any? I'd like to see the vampire counts and pirates actually do something for once. And less dwarfs of course.

Which of the major mods are the best in general?

 

[rashiakas]

I really recommend unatural selection 2. It allows you to give factions buffs or debuffs to their autoresolve strength against other AI factions. By default, it debuffs empire,dwarfs, all the elves except loremaster and buffs vampires, dark elves and orks. In one campaign I had malekith own half of ulthuan, wich was pretty nice.

As for major mods, I recommend CTT (boyz will be boyz) because its rather simple and without the bloat other major mods bring. This comes with limited recruiting (like TKs have) and makes army composition way better and things like dragons actually rare.

Then there is obviously the TEB Southern Realms mod wich is excelently done and makes Estalia, Tilea, Border Princes and the New World Colonies unique factions with their own Legendary Lords and units/mechanics.

Then I can recommend Progressively Harder Campaign - Anti-Snowball, because it makes the game harder the bigger your empire gets.

 

[Maculo]

Do any of the mods help the campaign balance any? I'd like to see the vampire counts and pirates actually do something for once. And less dwarfs of course.

Which of the major mods are the best in general?

I wouldn’t say any mod has perfect faction balance, but many try to fulfill a certain niche. From my experience:

-Steel Faith Overhaul remakes every factions with new units and mechanics. If I had to summarize, it gives every faction overpowered shit, although I don’t know how well the AI can use it. Elite units and lords were godly.

-Closer to Table Top mod is quickly becoming my favorite. CTT tries to mimic the table top game more closely. Compared to vanilla and SFO, everything is more fragile and needs support. Elite units and lords will die quickly without proper support.

-Lucky’s overhaul is also good, but I have not seen an update recently. Among other balance changes, it ties lord unit buffs to unit ranks, which can be neat.

 

[Average Manatee]

For what its worth Vampire counts took over half the empire in my current dwarf game (playing on the beta).

 

[Danikas]

 

[SmartCheetah]

I'm playing Chaos campaign right now, and they seriously need to rework it and add something more. Feels shallow AF.
Still, I'm kind of enjoying it.

 

[Olinser]

I'm playing Chaos campaign right now, and they seriously need to rework it and add something more. Feels shallow AF.
Still, I'm kind of enjoying it.

All of the old Mortal Empires campaigns are quite shallow because they didn't port over the cutscenes or anything.

And the Horde army campaigns are insanely boring because you never actually build up you just roam around burning cities that immediately get colonized in your wake.

 

[Raghar]

I'm playing Chaos campaign right now, and they seriously need to rework it and add something more. Feels shallow AF.
Still, I'm kind of enjoying it.

All of the old Mortal Empires campaigns are quite shallow because they didn't port over the cutscenes or anything.

And the Horde army campaigns are insanely boring because you never actually build up you just roam around burning cities that immediately get colonized in your wake.

Well it was different in WH I. Then fans complained how AI can be so stupid and not colonize these cities. Thus they increased chance for colonizing decision also for AI that were not called ruin dwellers, and now AI colonizes EVERYTHING. Even burned towns of its allies.

 

[zapotec]

I don't think there will be a chaos / beastman overhaul until the third title.

For the most boring campaign was the Wood elves one.

 

[wahrk]

I’ll second the recommendations for CTT and Unnatural Selection. CTT especially really reinvigorated the campaign for me. Low tier units still have usefulness later in campaign, and you can’t just send your Lords/big monsters into the thick of combat and forget about them. It generally makes you really careful about how you use your elite units. It’s also very unobtrusive compared to most overhaul mods.

No confederations mod is another must-have for me.

 

[kris]

I used to have an Wood elf army in WHF, but yes their campaign is the most boring.

as for interesting lord starta i would recommend Alith Anar who is surrounded by enemies and often get in conflict with Tyrion too. Hexoatl is also neat in that respect. Fornnordiska challenge, try Skarsnik.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I have heard from other Total War players that cavalry are less amazing or well rounded in TW:Warhammer.

In my opinion, you need to match your cavalry unit with its specialization, rear-charge, or use cavalry in tandem with a screen units (infantry). Bretonnia has cavalry that is anti-large, anti-infantry, armor piercing, and/or more general.

cavalry is micromanagement hell, becuse most of their damage they do on impact, just on impact, they're useless at anything else, so you have to babysit every single unit, wait for most of its horses hit the enemy, click to make them disengage, click to make them disengage, click to make them disengage, click click click what the fuck i told you to retreat you fucking retarded piece of retarded shit, click again some more and then, IF those damned horses retreated properly, repeat the process.

 

[Average Manatee]

For the record, the truly best way to use cavalry is to charge them from the rear of an enemy unit already engaged with your unit in a nice line. The cavalry punts the enemy infantry forward into the middle of your infantry unit where they get massacred as they spend time trying to stand up and walk back to where they were.

It's also worth noting that it can be hard to judge the effectiveness of units if you only look at their end of battle kills, because lots of units like cavalry can end up dealing a good deal of damage but not get credit because another unit scored the killing blow. In situations like this the cavalry can end up with only 4 kills if you pull them back out immediately but your infantry in an otherwise 1:1 fight end up with double the kills.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

you're describing only the heaviest cavalry. anything lighter is going to die at every wrong stare aimed at it. even special units like the ghost horsemen, who are supposed to take almost no damage, take loads of damage. bats, dogs and the sort? they're literally dead meat for a reason.

 

[AgentFransis]

Dire Wolves are actually surprisingly very strong (with Manfred bonus), they carried me through my Sylvania early game. They're fast and small so they have a very high attack density and a pack of 3-4 can chew through a unit of basic infantry in seconds.

And yeah, cavalry require management like in every game. But they give you tactical flexibility and can really carry battles for you. Yes the lighter cav is mainly useful for chasing away ranged units.

 

[razvedchiki]

Chaos dwarfs are available for campaign!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2020414633

 

[Matalarata]

click to make them disengage, click to make them disengage, click to make them disengage, click click click what the fuck i told you to retreat you fucking retarded piece of retarded shit

Check that you don't have guard mode auto enabled for all units. I found cav in WH much more responsive than in other TW games, heck I even manage to use chariots sometimes! What guard mode does is: it cancels orders continuosly if the unit is engaged, if you try to retreat you will need to spam the order as long as at least some models are fighting, if you try to tell your troops to chase an enemy (even broken or shattered units) they will stop and cancel order each time they engage the chased units an will stand still with nothing to do as soon as said unit disengages again.

Auto guard is very useful to keep your main line in check, iirc in one patch they added the option to decide what your default guard setting (on-off) should be in each battle and made "on" the default selection.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

honestly i can't remember, but i had this kind of issue only with cavalry, other units disengaged pretty much without issues.