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trexmeyer wrote:

Voss wrote:

trexmeyer wrote:
LL starts don't really matter for the player IMO. I haven't had an issue on VH in WH2/3 with anyone so far, except for with mods added. Tomb Kings Extended sent four factions after me ASAP as Lyonesse. I have yet to see that happen in the base game.

That's... not the issue.
Its for picking up aberrant behavior (Vlad running to the village south of Nuln, getting wrecked by attrition and destroyed by other AIs, which is something I saw over and over again), factions getting consistently destroyed early in the game (Nakai the Wanderer, and I expect N'kari to be much the same) or entire regions just getting painted as a single faction empire (with 90%+ consistency), which was a problem with dwarves and then orcs in the Badlands depending on the patch. Or Manfred building a huge swath all the way to Praag and then just getting steamrolled and losing everything to Empire doom stacks once turns 70+ roll around. That indicates a huge faction imbalance in early and late game units.

AI performance has to do with player's faction choice, aggressiveness (certain factions have next to no aggressiveness in the base game), autoresolve, whether or not their starting settlement is major or minor, and of course, how many enemies they have around them. It's more complex than just location. Vampire Counts should typically underperform right now because they're built around heroes and magic and the AI doesn't use those effectively . They could have no significant enemies next to them and they would still underperform. Vlad gets curbstomped because he starts in a minor settlement in particular. Even on VH Hemmler sits on his butt the entire game unless the player takes nearby settlements.

Yes, its more complex than location. The point is, its something they need to test every build cycle so they can find out how the various factions are performing baseline, try to figure out what's wrong and why so they can adjust them if stupid behavior turns up. For ME, they really obviously failed to do that with several factions. Other companies talk about this sort of testing as a standard thing, even for crap-AI games like Civ 6. TW2 had consistent faction issues that should have been addressed as part of their standard process.

But no, Vlad gets consistently got curbstomped because he runs far outside vampiric corruption and offers hostile forces an easy fight after taking turn after turn of attrition. He could easily take Western sylvania and have a major settlement, for a while would quite often take Averheim, but then would simply derp out and hang around south of Nuln taking attrition for no reason whatsoever. Then he loses his stack and Averheim and the Moot get recaptured. Its weird and consistent in game after game- an obvious problem.

Well, I think the Vampires problem is partly due to undead instability being such a massive downside, even when the AI makes massive doomstacks of trash units. Which is kinda odd since Total War's auto-resolve really skews in favor of trash units. The instability must be heavily coded into the auto-resolve mechanic as a negative.

Even in normal battles, it is so easy to disintegrate any undead force that has a massive advantage on paper.

I think its because Undead Instability works exactly like moral, just instead of fleeing the units disintegrate, and undead have terrible moral stats. Really, you just need to get stuck in and even with buffs the skeletons will begin disintegrating eventually. And once 1 unit starts to go the whole army will go. They're basically the only army that, if you win a manual battle the entire army will be destroyed guaranteed the first time.

None of the Wood Elves moved.

Lame.

Ah, there's no forests in Cathay.

 Olthannon wrote:
Ah, there's no forests in Cathay.

In Cathay, no, but there are at least 4 forests that they could have used- Laurelorn, the one in the Border Princes near the dwarves, the Heart of the Forest down in the Southlands, and the one next to the dragon isles. I think there is also one in lustria, but don't know if it made it to the tw3 map.

For all that they said they were moving 29 start positions in the blog, a lot of their choices have been... underwhelming.

 Overread wrote:

If CA keep the GW licence I'd fully expect their next project from them to be, at least the next big one, Age of Sigmar.

As has been discussed in the past (elsewhere, though possibly somewhere in this thread too), Frontier Developments (Planet Coaster, Elite Dangerous, Jurassic World Evolution, Planet Zoo) has an exclusive license to publish Age of Sigmar RTS games on PC and console. CA isn't doing Age of Sigmar, its outside of their license and would violate Frontiers exclusivity.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Overread wrote:

If CA keep the GW licence I'd fully expect their next project from them to be, at least the next big one, Age of Sigmar.

As has been discussed in the past (elsewhere, though possibly somewhere in this thread too), Frontier Developments (Planet Coaster, Elite Dangerous, Jurassic World Evolution, Planet Zoo) has an exclusive license to publish Age of Sigmar RTS games on PC and console. CA isn't doing Age of Sigmar, its outside of their license and would violate Frontiers exclusivity.

Yes but Frontier don't have a perpetual licence for exclusivity.

I'd also not expect CA to work on the next big GW licence game for quite some time after Warhammer 3 ceases development. I'd more likely expect them to move onto another major historical game (Medieval 3?) and perhaps do an Old World game as one of their Saga releases. Eg they could do Araby or Amazons or any one of a number of factions. They could even do the Empire with the Boarder Princes or a multitude of other saga style titles.

So chances are there's a good 5+years from the end of Warhammer 3 before CA would be looking to do another big project in the setting. That's more than enough time for the Frontier licence to end or lose exclusivity.

Voss wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:
Ah, there's no forests in Cathay.

In Cathay, no, but there are at least 4 forests that they could have used- Laurelorn, the one in the Border Princes near the dwarves, the Heart of the Forest down in the Southlands, and the one next to the dragon isles. I think there is also one in lustria, but don't know if it made it to the tw3 map.

For all that they said they were moving 29 start positions in the blog, a lot of their choices have been... underwhelming.

Mmm I wasn't being serious

They didn't need to do anything whacky, just a few changes is fine. Of all of them, Wood Elves can't really move about.


As for what CA are doing next, I heard it's a Warhammer Fantasy game in 3rd person.

 Olthannon wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:
Ah, there's no forests in Cathay.

In Cathay, no, but there are at least 4 forests that they could have used- Laurelorn, the one in the Border Princes near the dwarves, the Heart of the Forest down in the Southlands, and the one next to the dragon isles. I think there is also one in lustria, but don't know if it made it to the tw3 map.

For all that they said they were moving 29 start positions in the blog, a lot of their choices have been... underwhelming.

Mmm I wasn't being serious

They didn't need to do anything whacky, just a few changes is fine. Of all of them, Wood Elves can't really move about.

?? Their campaign mechanic in the TW2 DLC is WE moving about. Its why the twins are in Naggarond and Drycha is off in the eastern Empire.
Faffing about with the other 'magical forests' (and their neighboring provinces) on other continents is genuinely part of the campaign, so they absolutely could have spread them out more.
Though I think its an awful starting position, protecting the haunted forest from the plagues of Kugath and greed of Greasus could have been an easy way to kick off any WE campaign in IE.

Which is my point. The campaign mechanics of the Wood Elves means you don't need to move them about when they will go to the other areas anyway. Might as well keep them in their usual starting places.

 Olthannon wrote:
Which is my point. The campaign mechanics of the Wood Elves means you don't need to move them about when they will go to the other areas anyway. Might as well keep them in their usual starting places.

Ah. I didn't realize that when you said 'they can't really move about' you meant they were hyper-mobile.

Though a different starting location affects both their current area and the new area fairly dramatically, so I'm not convinced that keeping them where they are doesn't change much.

I wouldn't say Wood Elves are hyper mobile. You teleport to the forests yes, but you don't rapidly expand outwards past what you need for the heath. You're predominantly playing a defensive, locked down campaign. You don't really move about beyond what is required. At least, not how I've played through the wood elf campaigns.

I just don't see how of all races, not shifting the Wood Elves was underwhelming? The only possible switch would have been the Sisters but they are a much needed thorn in Malekith's side.

I would say Wood Elves are actually one of the faster expanding races. They can move pretty quick across the campaign map sacking, razing and setting up their outposts.

That might change in TWW3.

 Olthannon wrote:
I wouldn't say Wood Elves are hyper mobile. You teleport to the forests yes, but you don't rapidly expand outwards past what you need for the heath. You're predominantly playing a defensive, locked down campaign. You don't really move about beyond what is required. At least, not how I've played through the wood elf campaigns.

They're the only faction that can jump continents in a single turn. That's pretty big.
For the twin's DLC campaign, sure. You largely can turtle and just win it (seriously, it was the lowest effort campaign I played in the entirety of TW 1 and 2), but that isn't generally how ME/IE works.

I just don't see how of all races, not shifting the Wood Elves was underwhelming?

It... wasn't.
Its why I explicitly mentioned their blog entry where they talk about changing 29 start positions. Beastmen they just swapped two. Tic-tac-toe, they just pushed him to the other side of the Gulf of Medes. Wulfrik got shifted slightly to a safer start on the north coast (no immediate wars with the empire provinces. Bretonnia is a maybe, depending on starting vision range). Alith Anar shifted from the southern DE hinterlands to the northern DE hinterlands. Woo.

Nakai is lol!random. Khatep stayed in his pointless location.
Skarbrand and Kugath have interesting places, but lore-wise, they're both in areas of the world where the winds of magic are at or close to their weakest (and thus can't support armies of daemons).
Boris is on the outskirts of hell, where you can't possibly expect an army and settlements of unmutated Kislevites (east of the World's edge mountains as an outrider army chasing some goal would've worked, same as his TW3 starting position)
Skrag and Skarsnik suddenly shifted (and Skarsnik is likely to fail horribly. early game goblins vs early game dwarves just isn't fair on the AI), and now the Empire factions have basically no immediate threats at all (Khazrak and Mannfred can mess about with AI factions while they consolidate), while Volkmar has abandoned his people to bother the stay-at-home undead that generally don't bother anyone.

Its just such a weird map setup. Kislev will have a lot of struggles, and the Southlands will pop off and basically never stop, but the Empire, Bretonnia, Ulthuan, Lustria and Cathay look like easy starts to build massive empires. Lustria will have some action, but unless they made major changes, Hexoatl usually gets along well enough with humans and the 3! southern lizard factions should pop Skrolk like a zit, then turn to their local vampirate and the Dread Admiral (if he's still there). N'kari will shock me if he survives 25 turns against an instant Order-tide. Eshin won't last against both dragons, and they can just consolidate while holding off invaders.

Naggarond will likely consolidate. Grombrindal may shake things up a little (but will be less annoying than Tretch), but the dark elves tend to go nuts and then confederate into a massive horror.

The only possible switch would have been the Sisters but they are a much needed thorn in Malekith's side.

No, as several of us discussed, they could have easily moved Durthu to any of the other magical forests. Or Drycha. Or even Orion, but he's probably the best one to start in Athel Loren (though depending on the season, I could think of reasons he wouldn't be there).

Honestly Drycha is going to be a problem. Azhag's route into Ostermark is harder (he's basically facing off with the Tsarina now), and Drycha tends to raze cities, which Mannfred will just occupy. Odds are good she'll just get into pointless wars and free territory for vampires or kislev to expand into. Or alternate taking as they weaken each other continually.

I'm glad Drycha stayed where she is. She hates everyone, and is always a wild card that you need to watch out when operating in that area.

Do we know when this is going live ?

Voss wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:
Ah, there's no forests in Cathay.

In Cathay, no, but there are at least 4 forests that they could have used- Laurelorn, the one in the Border Princes near the dwarves, the Heart of the Forest down in the Southlands, and the one next to the dragon isles. I think there is also one in lustria, but don't know if it made it to the tw3 map.

For all that they said they were moving 29 start positions in the blog, a lot of their choices have been... underwhelming.

Agred although lorewise Laurelorn is somewhat different to the other Wood Elves retaining a substantial urban population with a major city. It would have been cool to have a forest in Cathay certainly.

Been much happier with things like Vlad and Izzy changes

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I would say Wood Elves are actually one of the faster expanding races. They can move pretty quick across the campaign map sacking, razing and setting up their outposts.

That might change in TWW3.

Must be I play them wrong , my last playthrough as Orion, I just took the places I needed to win. I've yet to try Drycha though, that looks a lot of fun.

Vampirates up.

Check, check, check, uh...
OK. I guess Malekith and Morathi need a literal wall of LLs between them, but wanted ghost opera one province further away from Morathi. (another grand sweeping change )


Meanwhile, I guess Hexoatl has a quiet buildup into neighboring regions without contest.

 Argive wrote:
Do we know when this is going live ?

IIRC, the official word is that UE lands next month. It's supposed to be part of the 2.0 update, which will also include four new LLs.

Yeah, August was the closest we’ve gotten to a release date, but no specific day in August.

oooh exciting.
I only played 2 campaigns in the vanila campaign. Cant wait for the grand sandbox

Dwarfs :

More meat for the Badlands Brawl? And Belegar not near Eight Peaks like the other two?

 Olthannon wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I would say Wood Elves are actually one of the faster expanding races. They can move pretty quick across the campaign map sacking, razing and setting up their outposts.

That might change in TWW3.

Must be I play them wrong , my last playthrough as Orion, I just took the places I needed to win. I've yet to try Drycha though, that looks a lot of fun.

Maybe the different sub factions play differently? I played as Sisters of Twilight. The combination of the campaign movement buffs, the fact you have outposts instead of settlements, and the battle style meaning you don't take many casualties in all but the toughest battles meant, to me at least, the most natural way to play was just to go conquering. Rapidly sweeping across the map and not worrying too much if an enemy faction starts gnawing on your outposts since they don't have much value.

H.B.M.C. wrote:More meat for the Badlands Brawl? And Belegar not near Eight Peaks like the other two?

Yeah but his whole campaign is the quest to retake Karak Eight Peaks and there's all the upkeep debuffs associated and yadda yadda. So it makes sense that he isn't closer. Grombindal looks like a fun one.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I would say Wood Elves are actually one of the faster expanding races. They can move pretty quick across the campaign map sacking, razing and setting up their outposts.

That might change in TWW3.

Must be I play them wrong , my last playthrough as Orion, I just took the places I needed to win. I've yet to try Drycha though, that looks a lot of fun.

Maybe the different sub factions play differently? I played as Sisters of Twilight. The combination of the campaign movement buffs, the fact you have outposts instead of settlements, and the battle style meaning you don't take many casualties in all but the toughest battles meant, to me at least, the most natural way to play was just to go conquering. Rapidly sweeping across the map and not worrying too much if an enemy faction starts gnawing on your outposts since they don't have much value.

I don't really remember my Sisters campaign. I played it through before they patched that missile spell that all your warhawk units had 3 of. It was over and done with in less than 40 turns or something mental. I don't quite recall when that came out, I mainly remember sacking and razing a bunch of Dark Elf settlements into oblivion. I suppose that was pretty mobile

 Olthannon wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:More meat for the Badlands Brawl? And Belegar not near Eight Peaks like the other two?

Yeah but his whole campaign is the quest to retake Karak Eight Peaks and there's all the upkeep debuffs associated and yadda yadda. So it makes sense that he isn't closer.

Its also the campaign quest with Queek and Skarsnik (though their debuffs are different), and they are both closer.
It doesn't look like it as much with Queek with the big icons on the map, but the march from the pass around the mountains into Bleakwater was really long in TW2. That's all gone, and now he's just a couple provinces away.

I always felt that Skarsnik's campaign was the hardest of the 3 Karak 8 Peaks lords, though my experience with Queek is limited. He seemed the most "vanilla" of the Skaven LLs so I didn't give him much time.

Belegar, you could build up 2 solid stacks and march ASAP to 8 Peaks and I never really had a problem. Once the upkeep penalty is gone, it got even easier. Skarsnik seemed surrounded from the start with less quality troops until higher tiers buildings and had longer to travel, through quite a few outright hostile or leaned hostile factions.

My playthroughs are heavily modded though, to be fair.

Belegar is "easy" now, but mainly because he's a tank, his heroes are tanks, and now he can get Rune of Spite really quickly and just Mortis Engine enemies down, especially Skaven. You can rush Ikit thanks to RoS and take out a major enemy early. Skarsnik AI isn't a threat.

Skarsnik's troops are fine. Not having access to orcs is borderline meaningless. The only good orcs are really Black Orcs and Savage Orcs and they're extremely expensive. Night Goblin Fanatics are the best point for point infantry the Greenskins have access to aside from if you play Grom and can boost basic Goblins. The bigger problem for is that he can't cast spells, he doesn't get a mount, and he's mediocre in melee, so unlike other Greenskin LLs he can't carry battles on his own ever.

Plus you can do entire stacks of Nasty Skulkers which can overwhelm units and have a decent amount of AP damage.