Warhammer Total War: Warhammer III

[Crichton]

Really wish Skarbrand at least (possibly all chaos factions) got the same unit upgrade mechanics.

It would take a total overhaul, so they'll never do it, but I think there are numerous units across the races that need an upgrade mechanic. Playing dwarfs, it was always irritating to me that you could recruit a unit of longbeards out of thin air instead of upgrading dwarf warriors. It was even more galling that you could have a totally green unit of longbeards sitting next to a unit of hardened veteran gold-chevron dwarf warriors. It makes zero sense in the context of the setting and is generally totally half-assed. Once you have the right buildings for Longbeards, you should have to trade-in a dwarf warrior unit with a certain level of experience to get them. Examples:

Dwarf Warriors -> Longbeards
Miners -> Ironbreakers
Slayers -> Giant Slayers

Pistoliers -> Outriders

Deepwood Scouts -> Waywatchers

Orc Boyz -> Orc Big 'Uns
Savage Orcs -> Savage Orc Big 'Uns
etc

It's the same for all the equipment upgrades; you should be able to equip a veteran unit of unshielded Saurus with shields once you have the money/tech; you shouldn't have to start over and recruit a whole new unit with shields. But instead of sensible upgrade options, we get chevrons, food, scrap system, etc.

 

[Jaedar]

Is it just me or are loading times ruthlessly shit?

They were always pretty bad imo, not noticing a big difference in IE vs ME or soul race.

 

[Lacrymas]

RE: Unit upgrades - it shouldn't be relied on too much for other races. The more we use the starting units the better. This mechanic was taken from the Amazons in Troy, who have 1 horde hero (Penthesilea) and 1 capable of settling (Hyppolita), and it made sense for them to be able to upgrade their units with rituals and resources, so it being used for horde factions like the WoC is fitting. It incentivizes units to gain as much xp as possible and not losing them, especially since I didn't see any +recruit rank techs in the tree (at least Azazel's). Giving this to other, non-horde, factions devalues settlements and logistics in an already too-simplified and -streamlined game. Global recruitment is a perversion already.

 

[Fedora Master]

Let's see how the Alberic campaign feels.

Oh and did you notice how the IM battle maps are much more varied? No more "field with a hill and some tree-blobs". You can actually be sneaky about attacking and defending.

 

[Tyrr]

Well, those turbo stacks you get with Oxyotl have one great feature: You can instantly level up a fresh lord to level 8 or so with them.

View attachment 27421

Thanks AR!

Nurgle AR is so bad. I guess it's because it doesn't take physical resistance, regeneration, healing spells or unit abilities (like Nurgle flies that boost defense when in combat, or poison) into account. During my last Nurgle campaign I had to play out 95% of the battles.
I had armies with just 19 Nurglings that killed everything with almost no losses, while the AR always told me "decisive defeat"

 

[Fedora Master]

Well, those turbo stacks you get with Oxyotl have one great feature: You can instantly level up a fresh lord to level 8 or so with them.

View attachment 27421

Thanks AR!

Nurgle AR is so bad. I guess it's because it doesn't take physical resistance, regeneration, healing spells or unit abilities (like Nurgle flies that boost defense when in combat, or poison) into account. During my last Nurgle campaign I had to play out 95% of the battles.
I had armies with just 19 Nurglings that killed everything with almost no losses, while the AR always told me "decisive defeat"

Right. I think the AR really favors armor and monstrous units, hence why the Khorne AR is so damn good.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[tabacila]

Franz campaign is belisarius putting out fires all over the fucking place.

Got dragged into bretonnia by Kemmler and Grom and now i'm having horse shaggers and wood elves mass declaring war on me in a spiral from hell because I stuck around for too long. I''ve had enough and about ready to mobilise and scorch earth the whole lot of 'em. Bastards.

Yup, that's been my Reikland experience so far.

I didn't even cross into Bretonnia, just fought the fuckers off at the borders, but Durthu still decided to fuck with me. Crossed the mountains for some light ethnic cleansing in Wissenland and decided he didn't like me as well. At the exact moment I had all my armies over in Sylvania to deal with VC, who now consolidate extra quick since there's only one vampire LL faction now.
Even fucking Marienburg declared war on me, even before I had finished off the secessionists.
I was lucky because, by some miracle, after I restored Middenland from the goats and killed off Festus, the north held again Norsca/Chaos for quite some time.

I don't specifically mind this type of campaign, but it's sad that this is the only 'emperah' experience you can get. We really need a new mechanic about cooperation between the states. It's annoying that Hochland while getting raped by Festus refuses to trade even for 60gp or grant me an access treaty to help them.

It also makes the existing Imperial Authority/Prestige mechanic even more of a joke. Neverminded that it only makes sense if you're playing as Karl, but the electors get fucked so quickly and from so many directions, I just end up ignoring it. I just made sure I have enough prestige to stop civil wars or states leaving the Empire and then just take care of business.

The whole mechanic really needs an overhaul, especially since (I STRONGLY HOPE) future Empire LLs will actually be IN the Empire.

 

[Average Manatee]

OwO what is this insanely overpowered buff that Volkmar can get?

Spoiler

(Empire can easily recruit rank 8 infantry so your halberdiers will get like 50 MA/75 MD)

Also this (Volkmar himself gets -50% cooldown to battle prayers so this makes these completely free AoE buffs/debuffs insanely spammable)

Spoiler

That's really convenient even if it doesn't do much to enemies on harder difficulties (though it usually slows them down since they'll adopt anti-attrition stances).

Spoiler

nice

Spoiler

Of course its random where the books spawn but you can afford to send out a stack for a 10 turns to fight a roaming army by 50 turns in. Also you start in the desert which is full of undead with vulnerability to your spammable prayers, it's like playing Repanse except all your lords are nuke bots.

OK Volkmar is even more broken than I thought. His whole faction gets -33% battle prayers recharge time. He gets all his battle prayers and -50% recharge time by level 4. That's -83% recharge time virtually at the beginning of the game. Then the book can give another -25% faction wide recharge time, meaning his battle prayers instantly recharge and all priests get -58% recharge time.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Franz campaign is belisarius putting out fires all over the fucking place.

Got dragged into bretonnia by Kemmler and Grom and now i'm having horse shaggers and wood elves mass declaring war on me in a spiral from hell because I stuck around for too long. I''ve had enough and about ready to mobilise and scorch earth the whole lot of 'em. Bastards.

Yup, that's been my Reikland experience so far.

I didn't even cross into Bretonnia, just fought the fuckers off at the borders, but Durthu still decided to fuck with me. Crossed the mountains for some light ethnic cleansing in Wissenland and decided he didn't like me as well. At the exact moment I had all my armies over in Sylvania to deal with VC, who now consolidate extra quick since there's only one vampire LL faction now.
Even fucking Marienburg declared war on me, even before I had finished off the secessionists.
I was lucky because, by some miracle, after I restored Middenland from the goats and killed off Festus, the north held again Norsca/Chaos for quite some time.

I don't specifically mind this type of campaign, but it's sad that this is the only 'emperah' experience you can get. We really need a new mechanic about cooperation between the states. It's annoying that Hochland while getting raped by Festus refuses to trade even for 60gp or grant me an access treaty to help them.

It also makes the existing Imperial Authority/Prestige mechanic even more of a joke. Neverminded that it only makes sense if you're playing as Karl, but the electors get fucked so quickly and from so many directions, I just end up ignoring it. I just made sure I have enough prestige to stop civil wars or states leaving the Empire and then just take care of business.

The whole mechanic really needs an overhaul, especially since (I STRONGLY HOPE) future Empire LLs will actually be IN the Empire.

It's deffo a bit strange that you can't ally with the other states. My tactic has been if they're about to get dicked deep. Have an army on the border ready to smack down whatever kills them immediately and reinstate the elector. They're usually pretty solid after that and will hold firm whilst you work on them to Confederate.

 

[tabacila]

It was more by the ear in my case, but it shows how gamey the whole mechanic is.

I basically ressurected Middenland and Hochland and helped Talabecland and Ostland with a settlement or two. Got my fealty up and refused confederations. At one point I was at 19 Imperial Authority. Meanwhile Ostermark was Orc clay, vampires and orcs were balls deep in Stirland and Averland, Nuln was bearly hanging on against Durthu and Norland was Norscan.
I pretty much just helped two states, while everything else was burning and the game was saying I was doing great.

 

[zapotec]

Durthy starting army is incredible: 1 Treeman (2 with Durthu) + 2 Treekin + 2 Dryads + 2 glade guards + branchwraith (can get hearthblood spell). Additionally all the forest spirits units have the vanguard attribute!

 

[tabacila]

Booted up a Throgrim campaign and saw that he starts with an engineer. Don't remember if that hero was there in ME.
Is Reikland the only faction that and has no starting hero or easy access to one? They really need to bring back those quasi-quest battles.

Also thought it would be easier without Grimgor around, but it really wasn't so. Must have lost my skills at corner camping .

 

[Average Manatee]

Been poking around a bunch of factions because I'm indecisive on what to play

Oxyotl really has a god-tier start for his gameplay. Take the south pole then deepstrike chaos settlements every few turns, selling the provinces to nearby order factions in exchange for money/diplomatic agreements. The Sanctums are as always pretty overpowered in a defensive sense (can teleport to settlements under attack, get free ambushes, extra cash for winning, massive upkeep reductions).

Tehenhauin got upgraded to be able to summon blessed spawnings with his sacrifices. Which is amazing since you can actually guarantee these better than normal units in your campaign rather than waiting and hoping for missions that give you want you want. Just fight, get sacrifices, unlock and you can reinforce in the field like a regiment of renown.

I'm a bit confused on how Warriors of Chaos are supposed to play outside of the regions where you get to vassalize Norscan tribes by beating them. Are you supposed to vassalize non-norscanes somehow diplomatically while at war and only take dark holds? The diplomacy modifiers seems heavily tilted against them accepting though. But defending all those level 1 settlements is going to be hell without multiple strong armies running around. and dark holds don't really seem to provide good income compared to how few of them you get. Slaanesh can corrupt them and turn them into vassals but everyone else looks kind of screwed (especially Festus who starts deep in the empire). And you do get benefits from having vassals so it seems like you're supposed to use them. I do notice that there's no supply lines and chaos lords are probably the toughest mother fuckers in the game (especially with unearthly reflexes) so there's no reason not to have 3 of them following each main army racking up XP, getting tons of items, getting dragons and eventually ascending.

Durthy starting army is incredible: 1 Treeman (2 with Durthu) + 2 Treekin + 2 Dryads + 2 glade guards + branchwraith (can get hearthblood spell). Additionally all the forest spirits units have the vanguard attribute!

Wood elves have some of the best early game ranged units so they barely need a starting army.

If you want to see a starting army geared to destroying their early game opponents, look no further than Grombrindal: Iron Drakes vs. skaven is like a guaranteed 1000 kills per battle, the helicopters can snipe down enemy lords or monsters, and Grombrindal himself can take on almost anything and hold the line like a champ.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

It was more by the ear in my case, but it shows how gamey the whole mechanic is.

I basically ressurected Middenland and Hochland and helped Talabecland and Ostland with a settlement or two. Got my fealty up and refused confederations. At one point I was at 19 Imperial Authority. Meanwhile Ostermark was Orc clay, vampires and orcs were balls deep in Stirland and Averland, Nuln was bearly hanging on against Durthu and Norland was Norscan.
I pretty much just helped two states, while everything else was burning and the game was saying I was doing great.

It's probably due to minor faction getting ass-blasted by modifier and thus lose all of their AR. Usually some mods will come along to equalize them later.

Another way is to use the Unnatural Selection mod where you can choose manually to give those modifier.

 

[Dwarvophile]

Buffed Black Arks & the new sea lane mechanics have totally enhanced the Lokhir Fellheart experience : you can now ravage whatever coastal city whenever you want. His short victory conditions should be reworked though, I don't give a shit about Cathay, I'm now hopping from sea to sea to retake Karond Kar from the Drowned.

I agree with Fedora, as it is now, IM is quite enjoyable. Haven't met any bugs, it runs as good as TWW2 on my old rig and I'm shocked by how fast the end turns are, considering the size of this thing.

 

[Fedora Master]

Having played around with a lot of factions for a few turns now I must admit: The IM map and the way the factions are placed are really good. Lords within a faction are also extremely varied now due to the new start positions. For example as Ghorst I start right next to Greasus, Imrik, the Cathayans and Ku'Gath. That's certainly unusual! And Ghorst only gets -10 Animosity with most factions around him so trade with Cathay or the Ogres is very possible. Leadbelchers for the Vampire Counts...?

 

[Fedora Master]

Spoiler

 

[Average Manatee]

If you want to do a game focusing on lord and heroes, warriors of chaos are the faction to play now:

Unearthly Reflex Chaos Lord have amazing stats very early as soon as they pick up +12 MA and MD on their yellow line. 4 Of these guys can take out early game armies even on VH/VH. You can get Chaos Sorcerer heroes to support with magic very quickly. You can spam Twisted Relic buildings which give +10% magic item drop chance and +15% souls gained, which stacks on all neighboring regions to give armies often +30% or so chance to gain items (remember also that each lord/hero has a chance to gain items so you're pretty much drowning in them). You have a Chaos Undivided Gift that gives +15% missile resistance (Chaos Lords start with 15% so that's 30% base) and an ability to immediately launch siege battles without needing to wait for siege equipment. Can very easily just run around killing everything. Later undivided gifts allow your faction leader to give some of his experience gained to all other lords and boost overall experience gain rate.

Also noteworthy is that you can move armies while in stances like Ambush/Encamp in WH3 which is really convenient for this since you generally need to be in encamp most of the time to heal between battles

Warning: Changing your chaos lords to be devoted to a specific chaos god seems to either randomly re-roll their trait or simply give them the specific chaos god trait. This makes doing so probably a bad idea. The different chaos gods also have different skills/mounts, and undivided gets a dragon while the others I've seen don't so I think you're better off sticking undivided. Some of the Chaos Marks do look nice though so I'm not 100% on this. Tzeentch has barrier, Slaanesh has some phys resist, Nurgle gets a defense bonus to counteract the loss of unearthly reflexes but loses speed and attack in exchange for poison and more health.

Protip: In WH3 you can save your chaos lords and re-use them in other Warriors of Chaos campaigns, they'll cost a lot if they are higher level but you make a lot of money not running armies. Hiring really high level lords kind of feels like cheating, but you can save level 1 lords with the right trait so you don't have to reroll every turn to find one with unearthly reflexes. Hiring at level 5 to get them that initial stat boost and let them duel enemy lords easily seems reasonable.

I think I'm gonna restart and try a turn 10 end game crisis to see what happens. Should make for an interesting challenge. In my previous game I noticed that the AIs never really consolidated well into strong empires quickly (granted me rushing the high elves might have had something to do with that).

I agree with Fedora, as it is now, IM is quite enjoyable. Haven't met any bugs, it runs as good as TWW2 on my old rig and I'm shocked by how fast the end turns are, considering the size of this thing.

For me autosaves seem to get a lot slower over time. I'd recommend not playing on legendary if you don't want to wait 5s every time you besiege a settlement by turn 100. Otherwise performance is great.

 

[razvedchiki]

Booted up a Throgrim campaign and saw that he starts with an engineer. Don't remember if that hero was there in ME.
Is Reikland the only faction that and has no starting hero or easy access to one? They really need to bring back those quasi-quest battles.

thogrim starts with an engineer in wh2, franz gets the sigmarite priest luthor hess in wh2. weird that they dont give him anything in IE.
with hess in the army you can kill the rebel army south of you and capture the rebel village in turn 1 witn minimum casualties.

for empire elector count LL use mixus mod, i think its near release.

 

[Tyrr]

View attachment 27517

Spoiler

View attachment 27545

In my campaign he also liked me first. Then he went to war with the Burning Wind Nomads (I was also trading with them and he hated it). Next stupid Goldtooth declared war at positive relations (Ming liked Goldtooth more than me).
It all ended with Cathay declaring war, dragging me into the east, when I wanted to expand west.

The zombies are busted with Ghorst. Enjoy them before they will fix them.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

With the Supply Chain nerf having early additional necromancer army walking around with I don't know 14 zombies + 2 bats in case of artillery + 4 skeletons to flank and actually do a bit of damage is kinda legit in my Vlad game. Maybe 1 Corpse Cart later.

With a bit of research on the zombie/skelie line + full red line they can actually take any minor settlements and take on AI secondary army. Just spam Nehek to heal every once in a while. And upkeep for is so damned cheap.

 

[Lacrymas]

I finished Azazel's RoC campaign last night and have thoughts. He starts out in the most defensible and safe position ever, in a corner on the other side of the Great Bastion with a vassal as a bulwark between him and potential enemies. However, he has the hardest campaign out of new lords because he must go through the GB and take either Wei Jin or Nan-Gau before the rifts start showing up and you can get out of there. I foolishly did not get out of there and wasted like 70 turns decimating every inch of Cathay, I even dominated Miao Ying and used her to kill her own brother. This genocide against Cathay was very tedious actually because almost every single battle was a siege one and like we all know WH3's sieges are the worst in the entire Total War series. And you can't really AR them because AR likes to punish misbehaving all-melee armies that dare go against the ranged meta.

There's nothing much more to say about Azazel's campaign itself, it's as straightforward as it gets, kill everything in your path and here's the tool(s) you need. And that tool is Pit of Shades. Here's the crux of the matter - the gameplay immediately gets boring once you get one of these vortex damage spells. They fix all your problems and are an answer to every single tactical situation. The more armies they throw at you the better because it means more xp. You just wait at the spot where the reinforcements are going to come in and decimate *all* of them with 2 AoE spells, racking up thousands of kills on a single character. There isn't a 20-man army composition that can kill you because the AI is dumb, so you are either autoresolving the majority of battles that aren't sieges or slaughter army after army. Once you get such spells, Total Warhammer is just boring and has bad gameplay, there's no way around this. I'm planning on doing a N'Kari IE campaign to at least see the big map, but I don't think WH3 will be able to hold my attention after that, there are simply a lot more games with better gameplay (including ones in the TW series, like Rome 1, Troy, and Shogun 2) than to waste my time with Pit of Shades simulators. The game needs an extensive gameplay pass and/or a non-dumb and bloated modding pass. I honestly don't know how people can play this for thousands of hours or stream it every day (looking at you, Legend), it just isn't engaging enough after the very short early game period and the factions don't play differently enough for that to be a selling point. Especially when compared to gems like Gladius where the factions truly play differently and you can keep squeezing a single faction for extended periods of time and not get bored. Soooo, yeah, I give this game a C+ for effort.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Maybe people try playing it with I dunno, self-restraint instead of spamming vortex spells after a while if you want variety.

Legend even play some dogshit bretonia cav only Legendary run in WH2 where unmodded cav is absolutely worthless.

This kind of sandbox is not a problem for you to optimize, just to have fun.

 

[Average Manatee]

I would say try dwarves but CA decided that they could use some spammable AoE spells as well.

 

[Lacrymas]

Maybe people try playing it with I dunno, self-restraint instead of spamming vortex spells after a while if you want variety.

If you don't use these spells, the gameplay becomes even worse because it's a spreadsheet simulator that overly relies on ranged units. The army vs army gameplay is very far away from the relative complexity of Rome 1 and Shogun 2. I can't imagine the tediousness of a melee-only faction without AoE spells, especially with the bullshit cheats the AI gets on harder difficulties. Actually, I can imagine that, now that I think about it, I lost my succubus in my first N'Kari playthrough and it was such a slog against Khorne. The factions are balanced around having these spells and I doubt anyone at CA have tested them without such spells.