Total War Warhammer 2.

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**sebster**

Bobthehero wrote:
Outriders are terrible in my experience, I would much rather have a mix of handgunners and crossbowmen. I personally keep a few Reiksguard with KF, because they're meant to be his bodyguard.

Handgunners and crossbowmen are perform a different role to outriders. The damage output by crossbowmen and handgunners is good, way better than outriders. They're good static shooting units. But when you get steam tanks and luminarks then you have way better static shooting units.

The one thing handgunners and crossbows can do that steam tanks and luminarks can't is kill flying stuff. Luminarks can do it but you don't want them shooting at bats when there's varghulfs on the ground. I find outriders better for that job than crossbowmen or handgunners because the outriders are more mobile, which means they can move to where the flying target is and control where the attackk takes place. So you can make sure your outriders are well protected in case the flying unit charges.

On top of that Outriders give some scouting and nuisance value. Not as good at kiting as pistoliers because they lack the 360 range of fire, but they have better range and firepower than pisoliers, which means they control the engagement better against other missile cav units. What you want them for is to lure out enemy cavalry in to places where your own heavy cav can counter charge. If the enemy has no cav or you kill it early then outriders do a good job of lower enemy morale because being under fire from flanks stacks morale penalties.

But that's just me. One thing I really like about this game is how different players can find value in different units.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's funny how WE play like I feel many other armies SHOULD play (Orcs for example).

I lost interest in orcs fairly early on. Nothing wrong with how orcs played, I just felt guilty stomping on the dwarves so completely.

But with their settlement restrictions, wouldn't orcs play a horde style razing game once they get out of the dwarf strongholds?

**Voss**

In TW 1 they had to. With preferred settlement thing in ME, there isn't any reason to raze and abandon city sites.

You're just going to have to fight someone there again.

**flamingkillamajig**

Ok so vessels of chaos the enemy chaos faction that only attacked me is now destroyed. Strigoi kingdoms were taking some of my territories but i managed to take some back as well as fortify my position and retake ruins left by chaos. Back up to 12 territories and strigoi are busy killing one of my dwarf allies which is almost dead now. That said i'm using that bought time to wreck the strigoi territories while the dwarfs hold on. I suppose that's kinda lore friendly but to be fair they're kinda useless right now anyway.

Dwarfs sadly confederated my best ally taking away like 1k gold income. I'm in considerably better terms with dwarfs now as well as lizardmen (once again lore breaking). I even have a trade deal going on with lizardmen which is beyond strange.

I find this game funny. My very first game of TWW1 i basically played a nice vampire counts guy that i think ended up making the empire angry despite being super nice. Funny how these days i don't even really have to butter up potential allies or trade partners with gifts of free cash to make em happy anymore. As long as you kill their enemies they tend to love you for life.

**AllSeeingSkink**

CA have released a beta patch to address the Chaos invasion.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/mortal-empires-pte-patch-notes

You'll only get the patch if you opt in, I'm just downloading it now, 95MB update.

**Commander Cain**

It's a bit late for a patch in my Dwarf campaign, a daring preemptive strike against Chaos forces in my southern territories failed (by the end of the fight I had Grombrindal and half a unit of crossbows trying to run across the entire length of the battlefield to kill their last unit, one stupid hellcannon but they didn't make it)

The Badlands are now a smouldering ruin as each city is assaulted by four stacks and I have no armies nearby to counter them. Meanwhile the border princes, my military allies won't even lend a hand as they aren't even at war with the Chaos armies...

I don't think I will get wiped out completely as my best cities are still remaining and I am pulling my forces back on the defensive but it's gonna be close.

**AllSeeingSkink**

I feel like the Chaos invasion maybe isn't the best way to deal with Mortal Empires. Surely it's just going to be a nightmare to balance, sending in waves of Chaos tough enough to make the player care is going to crush a lot of the AI factions.

Given the huge amount of effort CA has put in to producing TWW1 and TWW2 I think they need to spend some time (maybe employ some new people) to work on somewhat compelling campaigns for each faction rather than just having "beat stuff up and then Chaos shows up and tries to beat you up".

**Voss**

Well, the chaos invasion wasn't exactly end game even in TW1- it was something annoying midgame that you had to turn and deal with.

In mortal empires it isn't even that- you generally won't be even close to grabbing all the random capitals you need when the invasion kicks off.

I do feel it's out of place, though. It's fine if someone is playing them, but it just feels like a bad fit for the grand campaign of ME. with no real goals beyond resetting regions for new colonization.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Yeah sorry, I should have said "beat stuff up and then Chaos shows up and tries to beat you up and then you go back to beating stuff up".

Some factions did have somewhat interesting campaigns, like Bretonnia with their errantry war, but it was way too easy to get chivalry. Wood Elves have their Oak of Ages but the amount of Amber you need to upgrade it it basically comes down to wiping out half the other players on the map to build outposts for amber.

But I imagine if the Chaos invasion in ME just attacks everyone then you'll probably end up with continents wiped out before you ever discover them, but maybe CA has done a better job of balancing them this time. In TWW1 the Chaos invasions would just wipe out AI factions until the player went and dealt with them.

EDIT:
Anyone played Norsca much? I'm struggling with them economy wise, sacking isn't giving me enough to keep me going well. It seems like they play like a less efficient version of Wood Elves, where wood elves raze rather than sacking but make a lot more money out of it. I'm wondering if maybe I'm taking the wrong approach, I have 2 moderately powerful armies (certainly not doomstacks) and trying to go after high value settlements, maybe it's better to go for lots of small weak armies and just troll sack on weak low value settlements ignoring the higher value ones and just running away from any roving armies that might want to beat me up.

**Voss**

A couple times with Norsca. My second time I turned just about all of Norsca into pure economic buildings except the starting province. Their economy isn't great, but can be forced.

But I focused on Norsca first, largely with a single stack, once it was entirely under my control and building up, the southerners were fat enough to sack for lots of money- it helps not to be competing with the chaos invasion. Being able to force a confederation once you've beaten a factions primary lord really helps.

Getting a maintaining the first tier of favor with Slaanesh is also helpful (upkeep reduction)

My main problem was the starter units are really terrible. Once the weres or frost trolls are unlocked, it becomes much easier.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Yeah I conquered all of Norsca pretty easily because of the confederation mechanic (find their leader, beat leader, confed immediately), but I don't even have enough money to upgrade the buildings, lol. I'm now ranging south in to Kislev with both Wulfrik and Throgg (who I got via confederation) but I can barely afford their upkeep even though their armies are mostly made from low tier marauders and aren't even full stacks, I'm barely able to beat the Empire full stacks I'm coming up against.

I didn't go down the Slaanesh route which is probably hurting a bit and probably need to be more aggressive with several smaller armies until I can save up for an army big enough to actually conquer the larger settlements. Probably in a weird middle ground where my 2 armies are too expensive to be sustained from raiding small settlements but too small to be going after major settlements or settlements that are defended by a lord.

**Disciple of Fate**

Norsca is a bit of a struggle, partly perhaps due to lack of walls. You just need to leave a stack at home running around to kill off invading armies such as Brets who love to come up north and sack and raze. The distances involved and the need to range further out is quite oppressive. I feel like Norsca has the worst part of a horde faction, the lack of a decent economy with the weakness of the WE of only having outposts. While WE have a strong internal economy to support stacks, Norsca really hurts for money which makes it pretty hard to pull armies of the front line to upgrade. Add that to the fact you're almost always outnumbered and you can't afford to lose units in battle as that means sitting around recruiting while it drains all your funds. Its a slog imo.

**flamingkillamajig**

Ok so not long after i last commented strigoi kingdoms were sort even militarily with me and i was doing ok. Then the 2nd invasion of chaos comes to which i'm like "Seriously?!"

So vessels of chaos came back from oblivion and being destroyed as a faction to have 7 army stacks starting in my strigoi kingdom enemy's territory but raiding till they got to mine (which was probably 2k to 2.5k gold in raiding and horribly ruined my economy yet again). Meanwhile my enemy thought it was cool and just allowed them to raid from him. Of course considering it's 7 armies i might not specifically declare war on them if they'd left me out of it either. My vampire enemy has so far been attacking most of the weaker territories with his 3 armies. He's taken anywhere from 2-3 of my previously owned territories while i was busy holding back the flood of chaos.

I've lost 6 territories in 7 turns so far and managed to push back and mostly destroy one of them (making it mostly worthless). Some others got considerably hurt but are still viable to do some strong attacks. I also managed to kill 2 of their 7 original lords so far at least.

Luckily there's at least 2 armies of they have in a bad spot with little support nearby and my main army close to them. I managed to block army on one of them so that he can't get away so that army should be completely destroyed once my turn comes around. That said before that i have to deal with another attack on some city somewhere (probably Khemri). If it is Khemri it's sadly guarded by at least 2 armies of vampire counts and 2 of the chaos armies with chaos assaulting first. It's fairly heavily fortified and seems only one army will be present in the fight he wishes to fight so i could probably win a fight or two one at a time. I highly doubt vs all 4 armies however that i'll manage to not get the city completely sacked and burnt to the ground. If nothing else it'll do a good job holding back the tide a lot more.

All this aside i have walls being constructed to their highest upgrade which is pretty freaking helpful esp. since armies require upkeep but walls don't.

Anyway it's a tough situation and is definitely going to cause me problems when i get back tomorrow. I really wish vamps weren't becoming stronger by taking my territory while i get slightly hurt by him and mostly hurt by the god beasts of chaos armies.

**AllSeeingSkink**

I mentioned earlier in this thread that I was getting occasional crashes when trying to alt+tab out of mortal empires.

I cleared some space on my SSD and transferred the game files from my HDD to the SSD and it seems to have fixed the alt+tab crashing.

Not the greatest solution for those who don't already own an SSD, but if you can clear some space on an SSD maybe it'll help other people too. The load times are also a bit better on the SSD but to be honest not a huge amount better, unfortunately I didn't time them before moving the files so I can't compare quantitatively but they don't feel a hell of a lot faster.

Originally I didn't install it on the SSD just because the game is bloody huge at 40+GB and my SSD is only 240GB.

EDIT: Actually it does seem to still be crashing, just less frequently.

**Commander Cain**

Anyone finding that with the patch the Chaos invasion is now deliberately avoiding them?

I started a new campaign as Queek (oh my, I love playing as Skaven!) And I am not sure if it is the fact that Chaos forces cannot see my cities due to them showing up as ruins or they are just being suspiciously nice, about 12 stacks have wandered through most of my provinces and the only time I fought them was when I ambushed one of their armies.

**Ashiraya**

Commander Cain wrote:
Anyone finding that with the patch the Chaos invasion is now deliberately avoiding them?

I started a new campaign as Queek (oh my, I love playing as Skaven!) And I am not sure if it is the fact that Chaos forces cannot see my cities due to them showing up as ruins or they are just being suspiciously nice, about 12 stacks have wandered through most of my provinces and the only time I fought them was when I ambushed one of their armies.

Probably just the AI treating them as ruins.

The AI is very stupid in how thorough it is to not use its knowledge of everything to cheat, sometimes. Such as walking up to an enemy army, entering ambush, and they just pretend you were never there and walk right into it.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Ashiraya wrote:
Such as walking up to an enemy army, entering ambush, and they just pretend you were never there and walk right into it.

I'm glad they're stupid enough to do that otherwise I'd never even bother with the ambush stance.

**flamingkillamajig**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
Such as walking up to an enemy army, entering ambush, and they just pretend you were never there and walk right into it.
I'm glad they're stupid enough to do that otherwise I'd never even bother with the ambush stance.

Really? Ambush works well in TWW1. Of course this is more in wooded areas and roads and any chokepoints where one might cross a river at. In TWW2 there aren't nearly as many paths and a lot more open spaces or at least in the desert sections.

Had to restart my last mortal empires campaign with queek. I'm pretty sure A.I. allies are absolute morons. They don't really attack in some cases even when you fight the same enemies. Perhaps some sub-factions just concentrate on defense and don't really do anything besides be fodder.

Anyway i was going for a lot of undead alliances in this game. I cleared the paths of the canyons you start in and took out the greenskins and dwarfs down there. From there i got undead buddies and fought lizardmen which i'm once again being reminded just how badly clanrats suck against them. I had 2-3 armies with 2 being clanrats (with gutter runner throwing star support) and one being slaves and it was still rough to face lizardmen and in some cases i lost esp. vs kroq gar. Went back with 2 armies (one of stormvermin, gutter runners and warp lightning cannons and the other of clanrats with shields of both types). It seems to be doing well but the upkeep reduction skill for skaven lords is seeming very needed right now. Only two armies and they don't really get a lot out of raiding sadly. Would be nice to get the upkeep reductions and such so i can get more armies and just spam raid some provinces. Might have to just leave some enemies with one province like last time and just feed off them via raiding for a good long while. Guess we'll see.

**Overread**

I find that as a player when I've AI Allies I will rarely join them in wars that they get into unless it seriously benefits me to do so. I suspect the AI is of a like-mind in that "yeah we are allies and yeah I'll attack that opponent, but I'm not really going to march my armies over there to do this thing that you want cause I've got other plans".

**flamingkillamajig**

Overread wrote:
I find that as a player when I've AI Allies I will rarely join them in wars that they get into unless it seriously benefits me to do so. I suspect the AI is of a like-mind in that "yeah we are allies and yeah I'll attack that opponent, but I'm not really going to march my armies over there to do this thing that you want cause I've got other plans".

That'd be all well and good if these enemies weren't the only enemies this guy had and were on his border territories taking his land before i intervened and prevented him from getting wiped out. Now he won't even really attack the enemies regardless of how big his forces get.

**AllSeeingSkink**

flamingkillamajig wrote:
AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
Such as walking up to an enemy army, entering ambush, and they just pretend you were never there and walk right into it.
I'm glad they're stupid enough to do that otherwise I'd never even bother with the ambush stance.

Really? Ambush works well in TWW1. Of course this is more in wooded areas and roads and any chokepoints where one might cross a river at. In TWW2 there aren't nearly as many paths and a lot more open spaces or at least in the desert sections.

Yeah Ambush works, but it largely relies on the stupid AI seeing your army disappear and then wandering over your ambush point anyway, which is why I said I wouldn't use it much if it weren't for the stupid AI

If the AI was smart it'd be much harder to lay successful ambushes which would in turn make it less worthwhile taking up an ambush stance in the first place.

**Overread**

The other issue I find with ambushes is that it essentially requires you to leave an army inactive. Unless you use the trick as you outline above; you basically need to ambush set a unit in a choke point but also leave it not doing anything for a while. In general I find that its hard to leave armies inactive because there's always a threat that requires tackling; a settlement that would benefit from the order bonus of a resting army; the lord loyalty system wants you to do something with the army etc...

**AllSeeingSkink**

Yeah, the AI can afford to have armies sitting around doing nothing waiting for an ambush because they cheat on their economy, not quite as easy for the player to do.

**Ashiraya**

How to win at TWH2:

Use two armies, one main super strong army and one really weak backup army.

Whenever you encounter a super strong army garrisoning a strong city or something similarly strong, make the strong army enter ambush stance and have the weak army stand idle right behind.

The AI falls for it depressingly often.

**Eumerin**

Update from CA. The next patch will supply fixes for TWWH1 nations to bring them to parity with the TWWH2 nations. Norsca won't be included yet.

**Bobthehero**

Anyone aware if the older LL will get the new skills that they received with the Norsca patch when the Norscans come out?

**-Loki-**

Bobthehero wrote:
Anyone aware if the older LL will get the new skills that they received with the Norsca patch when the Norscans come out?

They just announced this today.

Summary:

We should get the Foundation update (and some extra stuff) this year, at least as an opt-in beta. 30th anniversary Regiments of Renown, Norsca and unique start positions for old world Lords that share one next year.

November has been announcemageddon for CA, to be sure. With the Empire Divided Campaign Pack for ROME II plus our first Total War Saga title Thrones of Britannia both in the works, it would be easy to think we’re in some way sidelining WARHAMMER II, but nothing could be further from the truth.

As we’ve said many times before, we have different teams working on different games, plus the updates and content packs for those games. The core WARHAMMER II team is currently working hard on the Reprisal Update, which will integrate the content changes from the Foundation Update for WARHAMMER 1 into Mortal Empires, and more besides.

This work is nearly complete, and we expect to offer the update as an opt-in open beta very soon. Here’s what you can expect to get with the Reprisal Update:
Warriors of Chaos design changes (see original Foundation Update notes for details)
Wood Elf followers Empire Startpos overhaul (full province ownership at start of campaign)
New skill trees and campaign effects for Old World Legendary Lords

Over and above the Foundation Update changes, you can also expect:
5 New skill-tree skills for Helman Ghorst
Immortality skill added to Old World characters
Bordeleaux now begins at war with Mousillon (yay!)
Plus a handful of bugfixes

This means more content changes for Old-Worlders than the original update, which should be welcome news for your Mortal Empires campaigns. We’ll bring you more news on the open beta timing in the coming days, so keep an eye on the forums, the TW subreddit and our social media channels.

There’s plenty more to come beyond the Reprisal Update of course. Wulfrik, Throgg and the Norscans will also be raiding southwards into Mortal Empires in a future update. This in itself is proving a Troll-sized task, hence the fact we’re doing it separately from the Reprisal Update – but we figured everybody would prefer those changes first, as they affect so many of the Legendary Lords already in the game. Also still to come for Mortal Empires are the 30th Anniversary Regiments of Renown of course, and we’re also looking into giving all the Old World Legendary Lords their own unique start-positions.

We’re not ready to put dates on any changes beyond the Reprisal Update – they’ll be done when they’re good and ready – so we’ll talk more about them closer to the time, likely sometime in the new year. So that’s it for now, other than to reassure you that just as we did WARHAMMER 1, we’re hugely committed to evolving, improving and adding new content to WARHAMMER II and Mortal Empires as time goes by.

**AllSeeingSkink**

BUAHAHAHA!!

I started a new Isabella campaign after the patch and once again buttered up Mannfred as best I could, after turn 92 it paid off and he finally accepted confederation even though he wasn't on the ropes, so now I have...

Vlad,
Isabella,
Mannfred,
Ghorst and,
Heinrich Kemmler

...all working together. Time to let the steamrolling begin

I hold pretty much all of the Empire except a small group of Ostlandians in the middle. Confederating obviously bumped up my power level enough because Chaos turned up the very next turn. We'll see how well the patch worked, hopefully I can fend them off then it's time to set sail and conquer the new world!

The Dwarfs have been hounding me with full stack after full stack for the past 20 turns or so, I think with the Quintet of the Dead they should fall pretty quickly now.

But damn, the AI sucks at picking skills. The characters I've inherited have little to no synergy in their skills and many have just picked up damned near useless ones (like a level 11 Necromancer who put 3 points in to Vanhel's Danse, 0 points in to any other spells, not even "Raise Dead

).

**Orlanth**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Has anyone ever tried an "evil" Bretonnian game where you just ignore Chivalry and instead build crusades which loot and sack rather than being all goody goody? Was wondering if that was something that would be interesting but I can't remember the negative effects of low Chivalry.

It goes no lower than -10 Leadership and -5 control. That is pretty bad, but survivable and the control penalty can be milked by rebellion farming for gold and exp. However character penalties will stackm on top of that, abnd are likely to be ugly.
it would definitely be a challenge game. Start as Bordeleau, conquer most of Bretonnia and get all friendly with your best buddy, the Red Duke. It would be interesting.

**sebster**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But damn, the AI sucks at picking skills. The characters I've inherited have little to no synergy in their skills and many have just picked up damned near useless ones (like a level 11 Necromancer who put 3 points in to Vanhel's Danse, 0 points in to any other spells, not even "Raise Dead ).

Yeah, even if they're not terribly picked skills, they are never the skills that help run the character the way I want. Any witch hunter that isn't maxxed out in assassination is gonna get fired ASAP.

It really sucks when you confederate to get a new legendary lord added, and then you get him and the AI has totally screwed his skills up.

There really should be an option to reset the skill picks for any character just acquired under confederation.

**-Loki-**

Reprisal update is in open beta. This includes what was in the Foundation update for Mortal Empires.

People have pointed out that there's quite a few issues with race specific skills, for example the Dwarf grudge for bonuses against Wood Elves wasn't updated to Elves in general, nor were specific grudges added against High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen or Skaven.