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 Overread wrote:

 StygianBeach wrote:
Since I found out how the difficulty works in Total War I just play on normal.

Honestly I wish more developers were more clear on what difficulty settings did in game in the game itself. Sometimes I think that people get hooked on the idea that the AI gets insane cheats on anything but super-easy or is specifically working differently between the difficulties.

Because that is the way it often works in strategy games.
Civ is by far the worst, where they just toss extra techs, units (including settlers) and then throw numeric economy bonuses on the AI and call it a day.
Total War also is mostly numerical adjustments- both to unit stats and AI economies.

Stat inflation is usually the go-to method for RPGs as well. And/or a damage adjustment. (-25%, 0, +25%, +50%, etc). Pathfinder:Kingmaker took this to insane lengths and bump primary and secondary stats (which also got boosted by the primary stat adjustments) which in worst cases took monster stats completely out of the bounds of the random number generator (the d20 roll).

'AI' just generally... isn't. Its hard, and tweaking numbers is a lot easier. But rarely produces a satisfying result.

AI is something that has stagnated in practical terms I think. The problem is its freaking complex and most game AI are anything but AI. They don't think and many are highly repetitive with little room to vary behaviour.


It's why after a while of playing one game you can often beat the AI without thinking because whilst AI can beat a player in micro control; it can't beat a player in terms of thinking ahead or having a game plan. The AI's game plan is the same every time (or is the same within a limited pool).


It's something that I think RTS and Strategy games really show up. In shooters and such the AI doesn't need a game plan, it just needs to move and aim and shoot and if anything likely needs toning down from what it can do to give the player a chance.

In RTS what AI need is a fundamental concept of pre-planning concepts. Which I suspect is insanely hard to code into an AI which then also has to be produced on a computer game budget and run on a home PC

 Argive wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The higher difficulty levels encourage the spamming of ranged units because melee units cease functioning as they're meant to.

Not sure why they made that choice when working out the difficulties.

Its the easiest way , they just increase some of the stat values in a table and call it done.

Not really sure what the alternative is.
I guess changing the AI behaviour which is I think what players expect/want. But this would mean doing a lot of work so no wonder option 1 is what we got lol.

But if not AI behaviour which would be really hard to code, what else can they do in a TW game? The AI already outmatches you in terms of micro management.

One think Zerk mentioend was that in previous TW games the AI could manage basic formations - front line, flanks gaurds and then flanked by its cavalry or similar.

I would wager those are pre-designed formations. It was probably l lot easier in historical games where basically the unit roster is much smaller and simpler than in Warhammer and in earlier games where the maps were far more open.

Heck the Medieval 2 AI would regularly just abandon whatever plan it started the game with to pull back a few feet and redraw lines again. Even if it was doing a siege that's how it would often try it.


I think it is a lot harder in Warhammer because there's a lot of units that don't neatly fit into simple categories and some which are very situational. Eg take the High Elf Phoenix. On the one hand its a strafing bomber that wants to sweep back and fourth over infantry lines dropping its firebomb whilst avoiding (as much as it can) ranged attacks.
On the other its a fast moving flying unit that wants to engage other flying units to prevent them flanking your army; on the other its a support unit designed to fly around and strike the rear of a unit already engaged in combat; on the other it wants to hit artillery that's left undefended or the rear or archers.


Basically it has a lot of roles; some of which have vastly different situations where they work and some where they don't.


I think the TW Warhammer AI makes up for this added complication by being far more aggressive in general. Which means it charges a lot rather than drawing lines and forcing you to come to it all the time. IT also means once combat engages things are confusing and chaotic and its weakness at fine planning isn't so apparent.

It also always reacts to magic even if it has artillery superiority.

I did what amounted to a speed run of Sisters of Twilight VH ME. They're completely busted. You can actually autoresolve pretty much everything during that campaign and the whole 15+ Hawk Riders in their army is incredibly dumb. Anything that can actually hit you you can burst down nearly instantly.

Isabella Von Carstein is comparable in terms of ease even on VH. You can take Drakenfel (sp?) on turn 2 by swapping her out for Vlad since Mannfred always wanders off. After that the super easy version is to just wipe out the local VC and then farm them + the local Skaven for rep with the Dwarves since Dwarf AI can be bent to your will as pretty much any faction. I've gotten Karaz-a-Karak to agree to invade Reikland with me before.

Harder version is vassalize and confederate Mannfred...I don't think he or Ghorst are good enough to justify tanking Dwarf relations. You don't want to fight Dwarves because eventually Grimgore will confederate all the Greenskins and he is more independent minded than the Dwarves.

Raw power boosts are the way to go, in terms of resources and numbers. I don't like it when units get a % modifier themselves for difficulty, I would rather the OPFOR remained the same but simply got more forces to throw at you.

I play Total War Warhammer on Normal battle difficulty and Legendary strategic difficulty. I hate the nerfs on gets, even the mild 10% penalty on Hard mode, I think a unit vs unit fight should go as predicted, and I dont like it when the units are so nerfed the high difficulty games eschew most of the unit roster to better cope with the penalties.
I far rather play on Normal and force my armies to be built on 'comp' that play on Very Hard and build cheesestacks.

As for AI its hard enough to code that IO don't think the game has any business using the resources it has, little or lot, to anything less than the best of its ability regardless of difficulty level. The one exception to that is the level of tolerance or lack thereof for the players choices.


Orlanth's Player Tip - For a challenge that still feels like Warhammer play the game on Very Hard or Legendary strategic difficulty, Normal battle difficulty and add the following voluntary restrictions.

1. 50% rounded down of every army MUST be made up of tier 1 or 2 infantry or cavalry.
2. All units./characters that are not tier 1 or 2 cavalry are 0-3 per army.

Note this wording means that a Lord on its own is legal and the restriction on spamming units is not too restrictive, it ramps up the difficulty without being broken as the AUI can make cheesestacks but the player cannot. If you want six of something nasty you need a minimum of two armies.
I have two additional rules but you can leave thme out for simplicity.
3. When confederating you have one turn to make any absorbed army legal.
4. When confederating you may not disband the original faction leaders army, once legal. This is a role play inclusion, e.g. if you confederate with Middenland, their leader Boris Todbringer is still entitled to raise men under arms, whether or not you can afford to keep him doing so.
Give it a go.

There are apparently some mods that put on unit caps and similar from Tabletop - Zerk is trying one at the moment.

Isabella Von Carstein is comparable in terms of ease even on VH. You can take Drakenfel (sp?) on turn 2 by swapping her out for Vlad since Mannfred always wanders off. After that the super easy version is to just wipe out the local VC and then farm them + the local Skaven for rep with the Dwarves since Dwarf AI can be bent to your will as pretty much any faction. I've gotten Karaz-a-Karak to agree to invade Reikland with me before.

Harder version is vassalize and confederate Mannfred...I don't think he or Ghorst are good enough to justify tanking Dwarf relations. You don't want to fight Dwarves because eventually Grimgore will confederate all the Greenskins and he is more independent minded than the Dwarves.

Completed a 400 turn long Campaign with Vlad and Isabella - I kept Mannfred as an independant ally - just left him Drakenhof and he acted as a powerful screen against the Dwarfs whilst I fought Chaos and with Averland took the Empire - but that was TW1 - trying out on TW2 and its def lots of different stuff. Bit wierd that the Lahmian Sisterhood is led by a male vampire who Neferata stuck in a coffin and gave to Nagash.

Also started an Imrik campaign cos Elves and Dragons

 Mr Morden wrote:


Also started an Imrik campaign cos Elves and Dragons

RIP

 Mr Morden wrote:
There are apparently some mods that put on unit caps and similar from Tabletop - Zerk is trying one at the moment.

Isabella Von Carstein is comparable in terms of ease even on VH. You can take Drakenfel (sp?) on turn 2 by swapping her out for Vlad since Mannfred always wanders off. After that the super easy version is to just wipe out the local VC and then farm them + the local Skaven for rep with the Dwarves since Dwarf AI can be bent to your will as pretty much any faction. I've gotten Karaz-a-Karak to agree to invade Reikland with me before.

Harder version is vassalize and confederate Mannfred...I don't think he or Ghorst are good enough to justify tanking Dwarf relations. You don't want to fight Dwarves because eventually Grimgore will confederate all the Greenskins and he is more independent minded than the Dwarves.

Completed a 400 turn long Campaign with Vlad and Isabella - I kept Mannfred as an independant ally - just left him Drakenhof and he acted as a powerful screen against the Dwarfs whilst I fought Chaos and with Averland took the Empire - but that was TW1 - trying out on TW2 and its def lots of different stuff. Bit wierd that the Lahmian Sisterhood is led by a male vampire who Neferata stuck in a coffin and gave to Nagash.

Also started an Imrik campaign cos Elves and Dragons

The problem I had with Mannfred as an ally was that it seems like everyone goes to war with him, so I got dragged into a whole heap of wars with anyone and everyone.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
There are apparently some mods that put on unit caps and similar from Tabletop - Zerk is trying one at the moment.

Isabella Von Carstein is comparable in terms of ease even on VH. You can take Drakenfel (sp?) on turn 2 by swapping her out for Vlad since Mannfred always wanders off. After that the super easy version is to just wipe out the local VC and then farm them + the local Skaven for rep with the Dwarves since Dwarf AI can be bent to your will as pretty much any faction. I've gotten Karaz-a-Karak to agree to invade Reikland with me before.

Harder version is vassalize and confederate Mannfred...I don't think he or Ghorst are good enough to justify tanking Dwarf relations. You don't want to fight Dwarves because eventually Grimgore will confederate all the Greenskins and he is more independent minded than the Dwarves.

Completed a 400 turn long Campaign with Vlad and Isabella - I kept Mannfred as an independant ally - just left him Drakenhof and he acted as a powerful screen against the Dwarfs whilst I fought Chaos and with Averland took the Empire - but that was TW1 - trying out on TW2 and its def lots of different stuff. Bit wierd that the Lahmian Sisterhood is led by a male vampire who Neferata stuck in a coffin and gave to Nagash.

Also started an Imrik campaign cos Elves and Dragons

The problem I had with Mannfred as an ally was that it seems like everyone goes to war with him, so I got dragged into a whole heap of wars with anyone and everyone.

I think I kept him as a defensive ally and ignored anyone who i did not want to war with. This time the Empire sub factions seem less friendly but on the other hand Drycha is a good ally and also allies with Sisterhood and Azhag.

Is the Imrik Campaign bad then? Seems much easier so far - lots of example missions givng you free stuff

 Mr Morden wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
There are apparently some mods that put on unit caps and similar from Tabletop - Zerk is trying one at the moment.

Isabella Von Carstein is comparable in terms of ease even on VH. You can take Drakenfel (sp?) on turn 2 by swapping her out for Vlad since Mannfred always wanders off. After that the super easy version is to just wipe out the local VC and then farm them + the local Skaven for rep with the Dwarves since Dwarf AI can be bent to your will as pretty much any faction. I've gotten Karaz-a-Karak to agree to invade Reikland with me before.

Harder version is vassalize and confederate Mannfred...I don't think he or Ghorst are good enough to justify tanking Dwarf relations. You don't want to fight Dwarves because eventually Grimgore will confederate all the Greenskins and he is more independent minded than the Dwarves.

Completed a 400 turn long Campaign with Vlad and Isabella - I kept Mannfred as an independant ally - just left him Drakenhof and he acted as a powerful screen against the Dwarfs whilst I fought Chaos and with Averland took the Empire - but that was TW1 - trying out on TW2 and its def lots of different stuff. Bit wierd that the Lahmian Sisterhood is led by a male vampire who Neferata stuck in a coffin and gave to Nagash.

Also started an Imrik campaign cos Elves and Dragons

The problem I had with Mannfred as an ally was that it seems like everyone goes to war with him, so I got dragged into a whole heap of wars with anyone and everyone.

I think I kept him as a defensive ally and ignored anyone who i did not want to war with. This time the Empire sub factions seem less friendly but on the other hand Drycha is a good ally and also allies with Sisterhood and Azhag.

Is the Imrik Campaign bad then? Seems much easier so far - lots of example missions givng you free stuff

I wouldint call it bad. That said I'm not sure how many patches ago I played it so maybe things have changed.
IMO it is notoriously hard on harder campaign + battle difficulties. You are dealing with double whamy of economical and geographical & strategic challenges.

From economy perspective, the capital is in a really bad place with no realistic access to any harbours so no way to establish any trade/diplomacy. Normaly by the time you can confederate Caledor and "get access" to ulthuan you will be so bogged down and invested in the east trying to defend your holdings you cant do anything with it or have resource to defend the foothold. I wish there was a way to manualy switch capitals.

The main issue is you are dealing with clan eshin to the east. They must be eradicated before they confedare with another rat faction or become too strong. The AI cheats on the numebrs of rat armies they field off just 2-3 settlements is binkers.. Rats are just a nightmare to fight startegicaly because their ambush attacks and underway. Then you have Malus to the south. By the time you finish with those you will end up either making enemies with Dwarfs or orks & possibly beatsment in the west.

The strategic campaign Is very challenging because of the terrain. You end up having to fight across the mountains with either orks dwarfs or skaven. Having to underway really puts high elves at a distadvanatge early on. It will take you like 2-3 turns to capture minor settlements all the while a main ork/beatsment army can just underway to the heart of your empire. I think on my last playthough I spent about 15 turns trying to hunt down and finish moghur(I think?). His faction would retreat to the mountains using the underway and hide. And as soon as I started moving out to capture new territory he would respawn and have a new fullstack and underway deep into my territory over 2 or so turns and sack/raze minor settlements. Basiclay ended up getting dragged into wackamole all the while the orks would do the same. Every time id capture terrioty they would recapture as soon as I marhc on and then just underway around.

All this said you start off with a dragon, fire mage and get dragon mount very early on. So very early game can be very satisfying as you can be bit OP. The unique dragons are very awesome too!

My Manfred campaign is basically done.. I think I wont bother to get the whole map. Already got half of ulthuan and the entire old world. Only left with cult of pleasure, and clan pestilence as enemies. Maybe play on until I finish the SOK building and get the dread incarnate doomstack going for a few turns of fun but thats it.

Not really sure what to play as next.
Maybe I will try Imrik again.

Think this time I will try to force march west T1 and try to get to the coast and abandon the capital before the orks war dec me. Im counting on them not war decing while im moving through their lands as relations wont be that bad. That or fight my way through to the coast before dwarf factions capture those.

Only played a few turns - but got a coast al settlement very quickly to the west and noted the Eshin to the north west. Allied with Tomb Kings and Wood Elves so far.

I suck at playing Dark Elves. I don't know why I just can't get them to work and I keep getting rolled. The one exception now seems to be Rakarth as I can just load up on monsters. That seems to be the only way I can win with them.

Now to see if I can win this Vortex campaign before I try my hand at a Mortal Empires one.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
I suck at playing Dark Elves. I don't know why I just can't get them to work and I keep getting rolled. The one exception now seems to be Rakarth as I can just load up on monsters. That seems to be the only way I can win with them.

Now to see if I can win this Vortex campaign before I try my hand at a Mortal Empires one.

Slave economy farming rebellions.

T1. Crossbows spam & magic
T2.Rush shades.
Spam shades
3.Spam/rush dragons

Don't forget Black Arks. Also, there was a bug where the AI wouldn't detect Black Arks in cities and just throw itself into entrenched full stacks repeatedly...it might still be a thing.

I've been knocking out VH achievements.

Ran through Sisters on Twilight legendary. It's absurdly easy, probably the easiest option in the game. Was able to confederate Drycha, which was odd.

Also did Vampire Counts and Bretonnia (Fay Enchantress) VH. Fay Enchantress is a quick win (less than 120 turns~), but Vampire Counts are borderline broken in my mind.

Off the top of my head I've done the following on VH/L:

Wulfrik: Start is tricky, but once you get a couple of capitol techs you start snowballing hard.
Warriors of Chaos: I've only done this with an encamp mod that requires no movement (in game default is 25%, but Vampire Coast needs 0%). It should still be easy now...with Rakarth and other changes I've seen Reikland and Couronne get wiped out by AI factions multiple times since T&T.
Skaven (Clan Eshin): Did this on Vortex. About 100 turns. Easy.
Greenskins (Grom): Also on Vortex. Easy.
Vampire Counts: Takes ages, but they're honestly OP and scale well on difficulty increases.
Bretonnia (Fay Enchantress): I quit once when going for industry tech and ran it again going for confederation tech. Confederation tech is stronger.
Sisters of Twilight: Might be the easiest conditions in ME and the army you start with is obscene.

I'm close to wins as Gelt and Morathi in ME, but I don't know if I can be bothered to finish those runs.

Gelt is a pain. Not for any difficulty reason, but just for the Empire confederation mechanic (which is part of the campaign goals). It just takes a long time for the authority and each regional 1-10 ranking to go up.

Sometimes its easier to just declare war and soak the penalties.
In some ways it seems like it would be easier on higher difficulties as the other states are more likely to be wiped out, and all you need to do is reclaim the original territory.

Okay well after taking your advise I finally managed to beat the Vortex Campaign for Dark Elves. Seems I really was over thinking it and just "shooting the hell out of everything" makes everything much easier.

Also, while shades are good, man are Darkshards w/shields cost effective. I probably rolled around the map conquering Ulthuan with them longer then needed since they were so good.

Now on to Wood Elves...

News is up. The Silence and The Fury. Lizardmen vs Beastmen. The Lizard LL is apparently a skink who got trapped in the Realm of Chaos for a while, and went Doomguy on the inhabitants.

Unfortunately I'm at work, so I'll leave any further details - along with the trailer link - to others.

Seems to be

Oxyotl, He That Hunts Unseen

https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Oxyotl

Thanks!

A couple of other bits of info -

The new Beastmen LL is Taurox, a minotaur with a metal skin (the reward for slaughtering lots of people in Talabacland).

The release date is July 14, and it's up for pre-order.

Yeah. According to the steam page there seems to be a couple interesting mechanics (I suspect a test bed for TW3).

Beastmen: Taurox
After embarking on a bloody rampage through Talabecland, Taurox was rewarded by the dark gods with a body of brass… and still, he thirsts for slaughter! As he wins battles, Taurox gains Momentum, and his army can replenish action points to fight and fight again. The longer his kill-streak continues, the greater the gifts bestowed upon him by the ruinous powers. He and his Beastmen hordes will ultimately need to locate the Heart of Darkness, where he will face Oxyotl in a final, decisive battle.


Lizardmen: Oxyotl
A chameleon Skink of high renown, Oxyotl has a long history of fighting – and succeeding against – the otherworldly forces of Chaos. His prescience enables him to detect where the forces of chaos will strike next and, utilising the network of lost Secret Sanctums across the world only he can capture and develop, Oxyotl can choose which threats to tackle, and reap the rewards of victory. Oxyotl can instantly travel between his capitol, his unique mission areas, and any Secret Sanctums he has rediscovered. Ultimately, he must travel to the Heart of Darkness and face the hordes of Taurox in a final, desperate battle.

The Secret Sanctums thing is something, ironically, I think Beastmen should have had (and from the beginning) The horde-only playstyle is a little bizarre, and a few shrines and totems in the mountains and forests as 'gathering points' would have worked really well. Mechanically I guess it works for Oxyotl.

Not sure Lizards needed a 7th legendary lord, but whatever. I look forward to updated beasts at last.

I agree that 7 LLs seems a bit much. But CA seems determined to have at least one WH2 race in each DLC, and they never used the Tomb Kings or Vampire Coast for that. So someone was going to get a seventh lord.

That will change with the upcoming game, although there will likely be complaints if the other three WH2 starting races don't also get a seventh

Meanwhile, Empire and Dwarves have four. And Norsca has two...

Just be happy it was't more fething Skaven DLC.

A lot of people are hoping that Thanquol makes an appearance before CA finishes with the series.

He'll be a TWW3 thing.

I think he'll be like Markus Wulfhart was for the Empire in TWW2 - a way of introducing the Empire to the main campaign.

So TWW3 won't have Skaven outside of whatever they call the third game's version of Mortal Empires, but introducing Thanquol will bring Skaven into the main game.

I am pretty happy with getting a Beastmen update myself. Looking forward to see what Tarriff does with this.

Eumerin wrote:
A lot of people are hoping that Thanquol makes an appearance before CA finishes with the series.

Considering Gotrek is in, I think many are really hoping for it to be the case.

Heck I'm hoping we see Max and Ulrika make appearances too (Ulrika might even make a double appearance)

Ulrika would be great - Mortal and Vampire - cool to have Neferata as well.