Warhammer Total War: Warhammer III

[Lacrymas]

So, after playing almost 80 turns as Cathay and having 2 souls going for 3, I can say I have a pretty good grasp of the faction especially considering Total Warhammer's factions are generally very simple. Here's what I think. I'm enjoying Cathay more than I thought I would and that's probably because it's not too flanderdized and it doesn't have too many wacky and zany units. Warhammer armies have the tendency to be spread too thin because ratman is already zany enough, but when you have an entire race and roster of ratmen it tends to lose its charm and focus due to the designers/writers/developers starting to run out of ideas fast. A lot of the Total Warhammer factions fall prey to this, but I digress. Cathay is mostly humans with only one fantasy unit, the terracotta sentinels. That's great - it allows the more fantastical creatures to pop and aren't lost in the mire of all the other fantastical creatures. The devs also found a way to make infantry finally viable through the yin/yang mechanic in battles even on the highest difficulties.

However, Cathay has a very limited roster that limits itself even more by almost half the roster being borderline useless or outshined by others (whether that is strategically or tactically). What you soon find out is that the basic peasant spearmen and archers are great, actually, so you don't use anything else and just upgrade those to jade warriors and then celestial guards. Your best/doomstack army is enough celestial guardsmen to protect your celestial crossbowmen and artillery. That's it, everything else is debatable. Terracotta sentinels are ok-ish and can complement this kind of army, but they aren't needed at all. Everything else you will almost never use or will use in one battle to find out they are worse than your bread and butter halberdiers and crossbowmen. Gunpowder units are waaaay more useless than they appear at first, the considerable range they have can't offset the lack of damage output. All cavalry is terrible in this game and Cathay's isn't an exception, the flying horses (Longma riders?) are teetering on the edge of being somewhat useful, but the prohibitive cost and debatable usefulness means you are better off just filling that space with more celestial guard. The Wu Xing War Compasses and Sky Lanterns are garbage plain and simple, if you are going to use the compasses it's better to have an astromancer ride one instead. Sky Junks on the other hand can be an ok substitute for artillery because it's basically a flying fire rain rocket that fires 4 times slower (because it's a single entity compared to the actual fire rain rockets who have 4 models per unit) but it also has unlimited basic ammo like the lanterns when it exhausts its rockets. It's fine if you really want the pretty flying balloons. And that's basically it, you'll never use 1/3rd of the roster and some of the others are debatable. The obvious progression of peasants -> jade warriors -> celestial guard makes the roster seem myopic and constraining because they are literally the same unit with better stats each upgrade level.

I've come to somewhat appreciate half the campaign mechanics Cathay has. I get why the caravans are there now, it gives you something to do during the looooooong peaceful downtime between Bastion attacks and rift spawns. Cathay is in a very defensible position on the map and Zhao Ming can very easily make allies of the ogres in the south, so you literally have no enemies to worry about if it wasn't for the attacks on the Bastion. However, the caravan forces are not big and powerful enough to repel attacks 70% of the time, so if you get attacked by wandering chaos forces you can't do anything and you lose the caravan. You also can't bring back caravan masters even if they are immortal for some reason, so you lose your gained traits. All in all, caravans are a band-aid mechanic and a somewhat poorly thought out one but it's ok to fill the time. Speaking of half-assed mechanics - the Wu Xing Compass. 90% of the time, you'll keep it giving you population growth and income. You will never use the direction that gives you defensive supplies ever and the other two are prohibitively situational. It's a passive mechanic that is just a button to press when you feel like you need certain bonuses, that's it. Like I've said before, this needed to be more dynamic to accentuate the rivalry between Miao Ying and Zhao Ming, something like Hector and Paris in Troy. Just copy their mechanics, actually, make it have you earning the favor of your dragon father and whoever has more favor gets to control the compass. It makes soooo much sense and it would immediately make the campaign more dynamic. Cathay sorely needs this due to its defensive geographic location. But as always, CA find a way to waste potential. The attacks on the Bastion are basically the chaos invasion, the moment the little gauge fills up, armies of chaos warriors start attacking the gates and they get more and more powerful the longer the campaign lasts. Zhao Ming doesn't need to worry about this until he confederates everyone but his sister (who he can't confederate because major factions are practically impossible to confederate in WH3). This mechanic is ok and it's finally something that puts the war in Total War. Seriously, playing as Cathay feels like A Little Bit of War. These armies spawning out of nowhere is a bit cheap, but whatever, you are given ample time to prepare because you know exactly when they will attack.

The last mechanic is the Yin/Yang thing. This is essentially a money sink when it matters. It gives you huge bonuses when you are in harmony, so you are strongly incentivized to keep it that way. However, this is very easy in 99% of cases, you just alternate which buildings you build and that's it. The other 1% is when you confederate someone else. You will almost certainly jump from harmony to 8+ in either Yin or Yang and have to either recruit lords to quickly go back to harmony or wait a few turns to change your buildings (you can convert every yin building into a yang one and vice versa through the construction menu). It only eats money, really, but by the time you are strong enough to consider confederations you'll have enough funds and income to not bat an eye. I have no ideas how to make this better. It's a bit strange but I have a hard time articulating why exactly. It's a mixture of it feeling pointless on one hand and subtly controlling what you do on the other. Because it's so easy to manipulate, controlling what you do makes it seem impotently spiteful: "Haha, you have to click on the building/technology with the other aspect now!" ....ok? Maybe I lied a bit when I said I have no idea what to do with it. I'm thinking this should've been more dramatic and been affected by more things. Occupying a settlement - 3 Yang, destroying it - 3 Yin. Declaring war - 2 Yin, signing a non-aggression pact - 2 Yang. Attacking someone - Yin, defending from an attack - Yang, etc. Perhaps this is a bit too radical, but it's an idea that affects the way you play, the tendency of faction mechanics in Total Warhammer is for them to be as toothless and non-disruptive as possible. This might be a reason why WH3 is bleeding players at a frightening rate, the factions are bland due to a lack of meaningful and logical faction mechanics. Don't get me started on Kostaltyn and Katarina.

Actually, the exodus of players is an interesting topic to discuss. WH3, to me, isn't substantially different from WH2, at least in the moment-to-moment gameplay. I have a hard time believing every one of the 90% of players who stopped playing has completed a campaign with every faction and is bored by the lack of the staggering amount of LLs in WH2. Maybe the campaign is just this bad and off-putting, but is it really cause for this level of player non-retention? The way I see it, it's because Total Warhammer can't stand on its gameplay alone and needs smoke and mirrors to blind people (like many LLs). The battles are shockingly simple and don't require almost any input from the player, this is compounded by the fact most units in all the three games are useless due to how the game works; the campaign map mechanics are borderline not engaging at best and actively detrimental at worst; the factions are bottom of the barrel tier with no attention paid to details (seriously, the feud between Kostaltyn and Katarina is legendarily poorly handled) or lacking essential features from tabletop (like warriors of chaos in the demon armies). I'm starting to think that maybe the reintroduction of the combined map isn't going to herald a long-lasting return of players. The focus on quantity over quality with this trilogy is starting to show its limits and CA need to do something radical to reinvigorate the game, something I'm willing to bet they are unaware of, unable, unwilling or scared to do. Perhaps I'm wrong and WH3 will have another 5-6 years of patches and DLC, but CA don't really care either way, they will drop this project like a hot potato the moment they see that minimal effort in the gameplay department isn't enough to keep people interested. So why should we care? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[thesheeep]

Actually, the exodus of players is an interesting topic to discuss. WH3, to me, isn't substantially different from WH2, at least in the moment-to-moment gameplay. I have a hard time believing every one of the 90% of players who stopped playing has completed a campaign with every faction and is bored by the lack of the staggering amount of LLs in WH2. Maybe the campaign is just this bad and off-putting, but is it really cause for this level of player non-retention? The way I see it, it's because Total Warhammer can't stand on its gameplay alone and needs smoke and mirrors to blind people (like many LLs). The battles are shockingly simple and don't require almost any input from the player, this is compounded by the fact most units in all the three games are useless due to how the game works; the campaign map mechanics are borderline not engaging at best and actively detrimental at worst; the factions are bottom of the barrel tier with no attention paid to details (seriously, the feud between Kostaltyn and Katarina is legendarily poorly handled) or lacking essential features from tabletop (like warriors of chaos in the demon armies). I'm starting to think that maybe the reintroduction of the combined map isn't going to herald a long-lasting return of players. The focus on quantity over quality with this trilogy is starting to show its limits and CA need to do something radical to reinvigorate the game, something I'm willing to bet they are unaware of, unable, unwilling or scared to do. Perhaps I'm wrong and WH3 will have another 5-6 years of patches and DLC, but CA don't really care either way, they will drop this project like a hot potato the moment they see that minimal effort in the gameplay department isn't enough to keep people interested. So why should we care? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You make a few pretty wrong assumptions here.
Nobody (well, almost) finishes their WH3 campaigns. That's mostly because late game turns into bullshit. You either steamroll and all that's left to do is easy map painting (which is too easy to bother) or you have cheating-many-fullstack-armies hostiles on all sides (which is just too annoying to bother).
I probably have 700-800 hours across across WH1 & 2 and don't think I ever "officially" finished a campaign. Just stopped when I reached the slog part - after all, why torture myself? For achievements?
Actually, the only campaigns I did finish were the WH3 tutorial campaign (which, again, is very good! I want more of that sort) and my first WH3 campaign with Ogres (which was shit because chaos realms, so I'll never do that again, but at least it was short < 150 turns).

The reason for that is exactly what you call quantity over quality. The different factions and lords are the main reason for that - if there were fewer factions, even if they were better handled, the series would have a much lower player base than it has now.
That has nothing to do with smoke and mirrors, the lord you choose (and how you build it) has a VERY noticeable effect on most of your battles (at least if you play them to their strengths).
Only late-game turns very samey for all lords of the same factions, but as I said, that's when most people quit anyway.

If the game was MP focused, maybe that would be different and you'd need fewer but better handled and designed factions.
But who cares? The MP player base in WH is what, 5% at max? It's even less than for games like AoE, since it has so much more replayable SP content.
Of course, CA tries to go for that MP audience anyway, but that's just typical CA not understanding their core audience - at least they switched to changing MP gold prices for units instead of just nerfing/buffing based on MP only...

The problem with the WH3 main campaign really is that the campaign itself is just plain bad.
By now, you can get the mod to disable chaos realms and combine it with the better victory conditions mod and that does turn the game into something much more enjoyable as you no longer have two big campaign mechanics which are entirely at odds with each other.
But still, the map itself is just plain bad for A LOT of the factions.
Cathay, as you have noticed, is just flatout too easy and same with the Tzarina - this also explains why every single campaign, AI turns into order- & ogre-tide in the NE and Kislevtide in the SE.
Meanwhile, starting positions like Nurgle are just fucked because all you have is bad choices, being surrounded on all sides by enemies or factions that WILL become your enemy later with a shitty economy to boot.

I haven't played all factions yet, but I doubt there are many that hit a sweeter difficulty spot than "too easy" or "too hard".
A lot of which is IMO down to the map design and (which you also noticed) half baked campaign mechanics.
Latter of which, at least in WH2, was helped a ton by mods like SFO- they even managed to make Norsca campaigns fun, if you can imagine that.
Which makes me think/hope that the exact same thing will happen in WH3: CA will deliver some half-baked stuff, modders will fix it.

 

[Lacrymas]

I was mostly exaggerating when I said that about completing campaigns with all factions. My point was that I very much doubt all of these people have thoroughly exhausted the content on offer. I also don't think the campaign is so awful that 90%+ of players quit because of it. Yes, it's bizarre and it doesn't make sense for anyone except Kislev, but so was the Vortex campaign yet people stuck around for that. The moment-to-moment gameplay is the same as in WH2, so what gives? The novelty wore off imo and the simplicity and same-y-ness of the battles became painfully obvious. There isn't a single battle in the whole campaign during which I didn't just put my spears in-front of my archers and watch the game play itself while clicking the 1-2 useful spells that my spellcasters have. The only one who gave me trouble was Skarbrand and I had to get creative with him. Speaking of clicking spells, magic is obnoxious and way too powerful. Theoretically, it's there to give you options in battle, but the only useful spells are the AoE damage dealing ones, you never use buffs or debuffs because their effects are so weak and they last for such a short amount of time that you are better off using the damage dealing ones. If there's a succinct way of describing Total Warhammer's gameplay, it's this - you are better off using the meta. The much touted variety is a scam. You can theoretically use different army compositions, but it always feels like a compromise and the meta is the right answer in 99.999999% of cases. The non-meta units are just worse versions, they aren't different enough to use in different situations. The Crane Gunners are a great example. Theoretically, they have great range and armor-piercing, but the crossbowmen still outperform them because range and armor-piercing don't matter. If there were units which the crossbowmen just can't chew through, then we could talk about variety, but there aren't.

I still believe Troy is the best contemporary Total War and they found a way to make even basic humans distinct enough and have a role in battle. The spells are extremely limited but powerful (which is good) and adding myth units on top just seals the deal. Troy also gives me much more options on the campaign map and reasons to want me to expand (get different kinds of resources). While playing WH3, I'm just thinking about how Troy did everything better and that I'd rather play it instead.

 

[thesheeep]

If there's a succinct way of describing Total Warhammer's gameplay, it's this - you are better off using the meta. The much touted variety is a scam. You can theoretically use different army compositions, but it always feels like a compromise and the meta is the right answer in 99.999999% of cases.

Only if your goal is min-maxing.
But why would you? Even on VH battle difficulty, you can have fun with a suboptimal army.
I'd even argue you can have more fun with a suboptimal one than going for just min-maxing.

TW is a toybox. You make your own fun.
If all you do is going for the meta all of the time, you're really just deriving yourself of enjoyment.

 

[Lacrymas]

Or they could go the Troy route and have considerable differences between unit types that are useful. A sword and shield unit in Troy is not interchangeable with an axe and shield one, you use them for different purposes. Contrast that to WH3 in which Crane Gunners are simply worse versions of crossbowmen. Why have this variety in WH if some units are just worse than others and you have to essentially force yourself to use them? Maybe people are starting to see this and that's why they are getting bored with WH3. I'm willing to bet that if the core gameplay, both in battles and the campaign map, was good, people would be able to gloss over the admittedly poor narrative campaign. Hell, there are two mods that remove the worst part of it, yet people aren't coming back in droves, so there's definitely something up that isn't the campaign.

 

[Lacrymas]

So, the campaign might be worse than what I originally appraised it as. There is a significant problem that occurs at one point - you are powerful enough to demolish everything standing in your way but you just click end turn because not only can you not visit 2 realms of chaos in a single Ursun roar, you also have to wait for him to do that. I'm going to retire this Zhao Ming campaign because I'm not in the mood to waste my time and either play something else or try out modding this shit out and using the victory conditions overhaul. Final Cathay evaluation - almost aggressively bland and a borderline pointless addition to the WH roster. Just starting out as any faction in Troy gives you more options and variety than the entire Cathayan arsenal.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

So, the campaign might be worse than what I originally appraised it as. There is a significant problem that occurs at one point - you are powerful enough to demolish everything standing in your way but you just click end turn because not only can you not visit 2 realms of chaos in a single Ursun roar, you also have to wait for him to do that.

yeah this has been like, pointed out in like week 1 or 2. At certain point you just click end turn because there is no point to expanding and just wait rift to open

Final Cathay evaluation - almost aggressively bland and a borderline pointless addition to the WH roster. Just starting out as any faction in Troy gives you more options and variety than the entire Cathayan arsenal.

Frankly this is issue with lot of Warhammer factions. You basically can consider races into like several playstyle variation and they pretty much play similarly within the group. Number and unit style might be different but playstyle is limited.

 

[underground nymph]

Or they could go the Troy route and have considerable differences between unit types that are useful. A sword and shield unit in Troy is not interchangeable with an axe and shield one, you use them for different purposes. Contrast that to WH3 in which Crane Gunners are simply worse versions of crossbowmen. Why have this variety in WH if some units are just worse than others and you have to essentially force yourself to use them? Maybe people are starting to see this and that's why they are getting bored with WH3. I'm willing to bet that if the core gameplay, both in battles and the campaign map, was good, people would be able to gloss over the admittedly poor narrative campaign. Hell, there are two mods that remove the worst part of it, yet people aren't coming back in droves, so there's definitely something up that isn't the campaign.

That’s honestly the main reason I quit playing it. There’s simply no reason to assemble diverse, interesting armies, as long as you can quick race to tier V units and make a bland but effective army. Doubly so when playing on VH/L. What’s baffling is that this concern has been raised many times since TWW1, and it never been addressed in any way at all.

 

[Fedora Master]

Since I have been replaying TW games, this looks even worse by comparison.

Rome 2 is in a better state.

 

[Lacrymas]

That’s honestly the main reason I quit playing it. There’s simply no reason to assemble diverse, interesting armies, as long as you can quick race to tier V units and make a bland but effective army. Doubly so when playing on VH/L. What’s baffling is that this concern has been raised many times since TWW1, and it never been addressed in any way at all.

And that's the main reason I can't get into the TW Warhammer games. The battles are so bland and one-note, consisting of samey units and overpowered magic spam. Factions need more extreme gameplay-defining mechanics and differences from one another, units need more diverse battle roles and terrain needs to have an effect. As it stands now, your first battle isn't any different from your last.

 

[ASTRAL]

Those games are always better when units have hard recruitment caps on better tiers. Make early units useful while elites feel powerful.

 

[Lacrymas]

Those games are always better when units have hard recruitment caps on better tiers. Make early units useful while elites feel powerful.

That doesn't really address the fundamental problem. Sure, it makes the earlier units useful for longer, but more expensive units are still essentially just better versions of the earlier ones, so caps don't provide any more diverse battles.

 

[thesheeep]

Those games are always better when units have hard recruitment caps on better tiers. Make early units useful while elites feel powerful.

Which is exactly what mods like SFO do.
There are even options to what kind of capping you want.

Default is afaik a global cap - you can't have more than X units of type Y, but the number can be increased by their recruitment building. Tomb Kings work like that by default, even in vanilla WH2 - too bad they never used that for all other factions.
But you can also select a per-army cap, where you can only have X units of the highest tier, then more of the next tier, etc.
(both variants can also be combined)

While latter offers the best balance per battle, I find it rather awkward as there's no in-game/setting reason for why you wouldn't be able to field more than X units of one type in one army and have to spread them out over several armies.

Actual supply line mechanics would probably solve that, but this is Total War, not Total Hearts Of Iron.

 

[underground nymph]

But you can also select a per-army cap, where you can only have X units of the highest tier, then more of the next tier, etc.

Tabletop Caps does exactly this, but it has flaws that I’ve mentioned here many times: it doesn’t provide any lord specific caps overriding, nor does it have any techs or abilities able to expand the allowances.

While latter offers the best balance per battle, I find it rather awkward as there's no in-game/setting reason for why you wouldn't be able to field more than X units of one type in one army and have to spread them out over several armies.

Not a problem imo as long as these caps are tied to a techs or lord skills e.g. an ability to handle a certain amount of any specific type of units.

 

[thesheeep]

While latter offers the best balance per battle, I find it rather awkward as there's no in-game/setting reason for why you wouldn't be able to field more than X units of one type in one army and have to spread them out over several armies.

Not a problem imo as long as these caps are tied to a techs or lord skills e.g. an ability to handle a certain amount of any specific type of units.

That wouldn't make much sense, either, at least not for all factions.
Why would your lord not be able to "handle" any number of highest tier infantry units? It's not like they require any special knowledge to command, they don't really need to be "handled" to begin with - most of them are just soldiers, albeit stronger ones. If there happen to be 10 of them, why wouldn't they be able to all serve under the same lord?
It would make some more sense with non-intelligent units (monsters, beasts, etc.) that do require some kind of "handling" by the lord.

In other words, you could actually do it like that for Vampire Counts and others where the Lord itself is what keeps the army together by means of magic (afaik should apply to the five demon factions as well as being in the mortal realm is actively draining them).

But most factions comprised of "intelligent" individuals just don't work like that.
For them, the easiest reasonably in-setting explainable solution is a global cap (you only have enough resources for X units of that type).

I see no reason not to mix both approaches, though, and apply them where it makes sense.

 

[Sarathiour]

Tabletop Caps does exactly this, but it has flaws that I’ve mentioned here many times: it doesn’t provide any lord specific caps overriding

Tabletop used to have lord that could override specific caps and restriction though.

 

[ASTRAL]

Those games are always better when units have hard recruitment caps on better tiers. Make early units useful while elites feel powerful.

That doesn't really address the fundamental problem. Sure, it makes the earlier units useful for longer, but more expensive units are still essentially just better versions of the earlier ones, so caps don't provide any more diverse battles.

Elites still feel somewhat different because they are more powerful when not every other unit is "late game" strong

 

[underground nymph]

Tabletop Caps does exactly this, but it has flaws that I’ve mentioned here many times: it doesn’t provide any lord specific caps overriding

Tabletop used to have lord that could override specific caps and restriction though.

Are you talking about the Tabletop Caps mod? I haven’t met any in the mod description except probably Scrolk that can field Plague Monks as a main infantry (which is ace). But that’s it afaik.

 

[Sarathiour]

No, I misunderstand because I apparently can't read, sorry for this.

 

[underground nymph]

Why would your lord not be able to "handle" any number of highest tier infantry units?

Well, a command skill, an honor, you name it. That wouldn’t be any more nonsense than any other fantasy-based restricting mechanic. Depending on a particular unit there may be lot of different reasons why a lord can’t. Tbh it is harder to come up with an explanation why a level 5 elf schmuck lord is able to lead the army consisting of 10 phoenix guards and an assortment of other top tier units.

 

[thesheeep]

Why would your lord not be able to "handle" any number of highest tier infantry units?

Well, a command skill, an honor, you name it. That wouldn’t be any more nonsense than any other fantasy-based restricting mechanic. Depending on a particular unit there may be lot of different reasons why a lord can’t. Tbh it is harder to come up with an explanation why a level 5 elf schmuck lord is able to lead the army consisting of 10 phoenix guards and an assortment of other top tier units.

I think lords are supposed to be this super strong entity above any other unit.
But that really only applies to high level melee lords and wizards.

It would be interesting if a lord's rank would influence what they could lead into battle.

 

[Mitleser2020]

Factions need more extreme gameplay-defining mechanics and differences from one another, units need more diverse battle roles and terrain needs to have an effect.

Terrain matters. High ground makes your units dish out more damage/receive less (up to +/-30%), forests have even more effects (cover, concealment and weakening of most large units).

Default is afaik a global cap - you can't have more than X units of type Y, but the number can be increased by their recruitment building. Tomb Kings work like that by default, even in vanilla WH2 - too bad they never used that for all other factions.

Tomb Kings are not the only example of unit caps in unmoded TWW2.
Yvresse is a partial one. The number of Yvresse-exclusive Mistwalker units is also capped and needs to be increased by the player (Athel Tamarha upgrades, certain buildings, certain missions).

 

[Tyranicon]

Since I have been replaying TW games, this looks even worse by comparison.

Rome 2 is in a better state.

Yeah, it really says something when I'm considering downloading Rome 2 again...

Ugh, what I really want out of Total War is Medieval 3, but it's been so many years and the company has moved so far away that I don't think it's in the cards anymore. Even if they do, it won't be anything like 2 anyways...

 

[Lacrymas]

If you want a Warhammer-style Total War, play Troy. If you want a historical one, play Rome Remastered or Shogun 2. Rome 2 never became as good as Rome 1 or Shogun 2 even with mods.

 

[Lacrymas]

So, I've been trying out N'Kari for some reason and I think LLs are freakishly overpowered even from the start.

This is on hard battle difficulty. He killed half the enemy army by himself. I decided it's better for him to tank the Bloodletters instead of letting the Daemonettes get slaughtered and it was the right call. Seriously, though, LLs need toning down if this game is to ever have some semblance of engaging gameplay.