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 nels1031 wrote:
Who could it possibly be!??!?!

Like... for real? You're not being facetious?

Because...




It's Valkia.

Here's her faction icon:


Here's her IE start position:


And finally, here she is:


Did people not realise that she was next?

Oooo, start positions. Pretty much finalized until another DLC

Oh, but I hate hers. Why shove her up in the corner? (especially after that quote about her haunting the borders of Kislev?)

Azazel inherits Timmy's spot.... fine.
Festus has free reign over the empire NPC factions.
Vilitch gets the other corner, which is also a little boring.
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I still think they screwed up on starting locations a bit. I'm ignoring Greasus, and that general area because Chaos Dwarfs will change that immensely

But some starts are suddenly much harder (Malekith- a lot more serious enemies and fewer allies) or just squashable, especially in the early game (Nkari and Skarsnik).

Others are simply on easy mode- little competition, easy to turtle and build up (Empire, Mazdamundi, Rakarth, even Nakai, Sigvald and Azazel).

The Southland Scrum is an entirely different beast. I do wonder how Fateweaver's AI is set up, as he can just nope out and go build a power base while using 'changing of the ways' to make it even more of a mess.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:
Who could it possibly be!??!?!

Like... for real? You're not being facetious?

Did people not realise that she was next?

I figured the excess of “!?” would convey sarcasm, as I mention how excited I am for Valkia’s reveal a few posts up on the same page.

But thanks for the info!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
Oh, but I hate hers. Why shove her up in the corner? (especially after that quote about her haunting the borders of Kislev?.

I know you mentioned that they’ve largely ignored End Times stuff, but perhaps they got the idea to put her up there because at the onset of the End Times, she was the tip of the spear in the invasion that sent the Dark Elves out of Naggaroth and on to their final attempt to take Ulthuan.

Voss wrote:
Vilitch gets the other corner, which is also a little boring.

With Kairos having flown south for the winter, they need something Tzeentchian over in Cathay.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Voss wrote:
Vilitch gets the other corner, which is also a little boring.

With Kairos having flown south for the winter, they need something Tzeentchian over in Cathay.

Sure, Cathay needs some chaos threats. But corner camping with a relatively safe buffer space is very a different experience to being in the thick of things.

It also really limits available enemies. If you want to recreate the chaos invasion of the old world through kislev and the empire, you're way out of place for that.
Its one thing for the factions that are effectively tied to the geography of their countries. But for the ones that aren't, getting stuck in the corners feels like a raw deal. Especially when there isn't any strong lore reason for them to be there.

Certain factions it'd make sense if they had options for their start locations. For some of the chaos factions it doesn't make sense they'd be locked in one place, and some of the more nomadic factions also.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Certain factions it'd make sense if they had options for their start locations. For some of the chaos factions it doesn't make sense they'd be locked in one place, and some of the more nomadic factions also.

Like most thngs there is a mod for that but it would be nice if more of the things that get modded where actually in the base game but sadly the hard work of modders seems to make companies lazy

Voss wrote:
Not really sold on the 'twin.' (which iirc is actually Vilitch?) I think its mostly the lighting effects (particularly when its conjuring a spell in hand). But it looks like a cartoon ghost (like Casper) more than something real, made of flesh and blood and attached to the 'body' of the other.

He's definitely gotten a lot more "chaosy", though IIRC he didn't actually have an official model or even artwork??? At least nothing I can find.

I don't hate it, but I think it would be better if he looked a little more like some horrible conjoined twin thing and less Big Dude with a ghost on his shoulder.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Voss wrote:
Vilitch gets the other corner, which is also a little boring.

With Kairos having flown south for the winter, they need something Tzeentchian over in Cathay.

Sure, Cathay needs some chaos threats. But corner camping with a relatively safe buffer space is very a different experience to being in the thick of things.

It also really limits available enemies. If you want to recreate the chaos invasion of the old world through kislev and the empire, you're way out of place for that.
Its one thing for the factions that are effectively tied to the geography of their countries. But for the ones that aren't, getting stuck in the corners feels like a raw deal. Especially when there isn't any strong lore reason for them to be there.

It could be an interesting mechanic at some point to allow, at least in a single player campaign, players to pick starting locations for some factions.

All of the Chaos factions should be able to move fairly freely in the realm of chaos.

Beastmen, Ogres, certain LLs in various factions, etc... Give them a handful of choices in starting locations and switch around. Maybe let them swap with other generic members of their faction.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Voss wrote:
Not really sold on the 'twin.' (which iirc is actually Vilitch?) I think its mostly the lighting effects (particularly when its conjuring a spell in hand). But it looks like a cartoon ghost (like Casper) more than something real, made of flesh and blood and attached to the 'body' of the other.

He's definitely gotten a lot more "chaosy", though IIRC he didn't actually have an official model or even artwork??? At least nothing I can find.

I don't hate it, but I think it would be better if he looked a little more like some horrible conjoined twin thing and less Big Dude with a ghost on his shoulder.

Left one is the new AoS one, right is the older Warhammer Fantasy one.

Chaos Art after getting a model

Chaos Art before getting a model.


He's been around a while at least when it comes to these. Though I think the older Chaos Art was pre-7th edition

The Total War FB page had some links to the blog detailing Valkia's faction/mechanics and a separate youtube trailer, but both led to a 404 screen. Someone probably jumped the gun with the post or it needed some last minute editing.

Should be coming soon!

Valkia apparently swooped down on the Steam team, and the pre-order for the DLC didn't go up.

Her teaser video apparently says the DLC pre-order is live, so they don't want to put it up until that's sorted out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
'tis up.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/tww3-introducing-valkia/

FACTION EFFECTS

Has access to Bloodletting
Campaign movement range: +20% after winning a battle (all characters)
Souls gained from sacrificing captives: +50%
Vassals gain Frenzy and spread Khorne’s corruption

LORD EFFECTS

Passive ability: The Gaze of Khorne
Campaign movement range +35% after enemy retreats from battle

Daemonshield grants invulnerability, her spear can fire off a line eruption, and Gaze buffs damage around her.

No point trying to run away from her (except maybe on some of the weirder places in the map where fleeing goes further than it should).

A normal sized flying model should be interesting. Hope the hit boxes and animations can cope.


----
Think I may do a chaos champions campaign with her while waiting for a hotfix or two (or even a patch) for IE. I doubt that's going to be in great shape on the 23rd.

Interesting that they had her take a pounding from those Slanneshi warriors with no climactic payoff.

 McDougall Designs wrote:
Interesting that they had her take a pounding from those Slanneshi warriors with no climactic payoff.

One of her abilities is temp invulnability - likely showing that

 McDougall Designs wrote:
Interesting that they had her take a pounding from those Slanneshi warriors with no climactic payoff.

She does scatter them like ragdolls, and they don't do much beyond annoy her.

Cool trailer. She looks like fun.

Huh. I was poking at the TW3 Steam page in the store (for the DLC) and went back to it in my library, and found an extra DLC poking about (in addition to Ogres). Its simply titled 'Eight' and was added August 18th, 2017. It doesn't link to anything, while clicking on Ogres in the 'Manage my DLC' window links to their store page.

Its a weird date, and scrolling through TW1 and 2 DLC release dates confused me more, since a Lot of DLC release dates for TW2 are a month before TW2 came out (August vs September), even stuff that came out near the end of TW2 like Ogre Mercs.

But, to wrap up this interlude, For TW2, August 18 was the date for the 30th Anniversary regiments. August 19th was.... Blood for the Blood God II.


------
TL;DR Eight is Khorne's number, and Khorne is blood, blood, blood. The Blood pack may finally be sneaking in. Hopefully with sliders.
And its supposed to be around now, according to the Roadmap:
https://www.totalwar.com/blog/twwh3-roadmap-2022/

Sliders would be an interesting choice.

The Blood Pack does tend to make the game go from "Bloodless" to "Open the portals to the Blood Dimension!" very quickly.

Yeah. I turned it off in TW2. It stopped looking like blood and just a red paint full-model dip.

I'd love a blood option that is a bit more reserved, I also tended to turn it off because with it on it just looked absurd and lowered performance. At the moment it feels like someone stubs their toe and then just explodes in a spray of blood and gore.

Was there any news that there'd be sliders, or was that just wishlisting?

And speaking of blood...

Can we just have the blood effects from Shogun 2 or Medieval 2? I don't want to pay for anime blood explosions. I just want semi-realistic bloodied warriors.

Better yet, realistic blood effects in the base game and a "Pay for your anime blood explosions" DLC.

Base game won't happen, as there are too many countries where that's a problem that impacts rating (or being able to sell it at all) and sales. Or CA still believes it does (I haven't personally had to deal with it since I picked up Fallout 2 in the UK and all the kids were chopped out and quests were left broken).

But yeah, I'd prefer they stopped dialing it up to 11.


----
Gameplay video is interesting. I do love having the option to short circuit the race and just kill the others. (You could theoretically do that in the base game, but there were so many, so far apart and with back-ups that it was stupidly difficult to pull off).

Voss wrote:
Base game won't happen, as there are too many countries where that's a problem that impacts rating (or being able to sell it at all) and sales. Or CA still believes it does (I haven't personally had to deal with it since I picked up Fallout 2 in the UK and all the kids were chopped out and quests were left broken).

That's always come across as a weak excuse to charge a few bucks for something that should probably just be a checkbox in the game to begin with. Other games just have the gore then remove it for the one or two countries where it matters, and I'm not convinced it'd make much of a difference to the rating in most countries anyway.

Yeah, it always seemed pretty weak to me.

And they could have added it for free anyway.

The countries that would take issue with the blood already take issue with the bloodless violence that already exists in the game without the DLC. And again, you can just toggle it off/on in countries where it is. It's just a particle effect.

In fact, creating it after the fact as a separate file and download would actually be more complicated coding than just including it in the base game from the ground up and having an on/off switch.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah, it always seemed pretty weak to me.

And they could have added it for free anyway.

It is free if you've got it from a previous Warhammer game.

Same as how you only had to buy the blood pack for Warhammer 1 to get it in 2

Yeah I know it's free now, because they'd really be taking the piss if they expected people to buy the pack multiple times.

But it shouldn't've been DLC in the first place.

Very nice tour of the world

 Overread wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah, it always seemed pretty weak to me.

And they could have added it for free anyway.

It is free if you've got it from a previous Warhammer game.

Same as how you only had to buy the blood pack for Warhammer 1 to get it in 2

I wouldn't call that "free" so much as "you already paid for it".