Warhammer 2 Total War

[Guancyto]

Oh, that's an interesting piece of information. That you very much for mentioning it. I had not even considered that it might be possible to do that. Are they steam mods, or would I have to hack the game?

GW

There are several, but here's one:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...tions+unlocker

[LCP]

They're Steam mods, perfectly legit. You have to play as Vortex campaign subfactions rather than the main factions (e.g. a faction unlocker doesn't give you access to the Dwarfs faction, it gives you access to Karak Zorn or Greybeard's Prospectors or one of those) and I think the DLC units are missing from the rosters, but it's still enough to give you a good taste for the faction.

@Zousha I would always go for Marienburg first after uniting Reikland. One of the wealthiest provinces on the map, very close to home (so easy to wage war on while still defending Reikland) and not particularly friendly with any of the loyalist provinces.

IIRC Talabecland are one of the easiest provinces to confederate, so if you leave them alone + be nice to them you can still expand fairly bloodlessly in that direction too. Averland gives you a nice corridor towards Sylvania but it also gives you a long border exposed to Karak Norn, who are maybe the second most annoyingly aggressive Dawi faction (after Karak Hirn) and will come and start burning your villages because some peasant shortchanged their grandad in a pub. Skarsnik starts up in those mountains too so if the dwarfs don't come for you the gobbos might.

Been a long time since I played an Empire campaign though so maybe I misremember entirely. Now that WH2 is out I'm lizards 4 lyf

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Thanks, LCP! Your advice is always solid! After I'm done with the Empire I may come bugging you for Lizardmen advice.

[Spacewolf]

So how are you supposed to play as Norsica in WH2? All the other races from one are there but I can't seem to find them.

[Vitruviansquid]

You cannot play Norsca in Warhammer 2 because Norsca was developed alongside Mortal Empires by two separate teams, and for some reason, the two teams never thought to check in with each other about compatibility.

Norsca will eventually be implemented into Mortal Empires when the inconsistencies have been worked out, but it won't be coming in the Reprisal patch that is currently in beta.

[boomwolf]

Probably in about two weeks, along with the next LL (probably itik)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Who's Itik?

[thorgrim29]

I think he means Ikit Claw, AKA rat! Doctor Doom.

[Misery Esquire]

(probably itik)

Would they DARE not have it be the great, powerful, amazing, magical, clever, intelligent, loyal, great, radium warpstone snorting THANQUOL?!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Would they DARE not have it be the great, powerful, amazing, magical, clever, intelligent, loyal, great, radium warpstone snorting THANQUOL?!

I think that might just make nastier fans start howling that Gotrek and Felix weren't added as hero units or something...

[boomwolf]

Would they DARE not have it be the great, powerful, amazing, magical, clever, intelligent, loyal, great, radium warpstone snorting THANQUOL?!

Nope, the ratling gun is missing-and its obviously coming with Ikit, so he's the next LL.

Plus, it places a skaven LL around the "old world" territories, giving them what they wanted with mortal empires causing you to have old and new world factions butt heads.

[Vitruviansquid]

On the one hand, I think some of the missing units like Shadow Warriors and Ratling Guns would be really cool to have ingame.

On the other hand, I really dislike being sold units as DLC.

[Grytorm]

Hmm, questions. I know that in TW Warhammer 2 each faction has a unique resource, does the first game have the same sort of set up?
Second, I understand one major difference is that in the original their were restrictions on where you could conquer but in Total War 2 instead a climate system was implemented. Has that been backported to the normal Total War Warhammer campaign, what about to Mortal Empires?

[boomwolf]

Unique resource? as in for the ritual?

TWW1 has nothing of the sorts, and ME don't even have the TWW2 ones (it would break the game a bit)

As for climate system, yes for ME (for everyone), but no for TWW1 vanilla.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

It doesn't look like anyone's mentioned this but...THE TOMB KINGS HAVE AWOKEN!

[boomwolf]

Honestly, I'd more anticipating Ikit as the next LL than any care I give for the tomb kings, hopefully he comes soon.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Hmm, questions. I know that in TW Warhammer 2 each faction has a unique resource, does the first game have the same sort of set up?
Second, I understand one major difference is that in the original their were restrictions on where you could conquer but in Total War 2 instead a climate system was implemented. Has that been backported to the normal Total War Warhammer campaign, what about to Mortal Empires?

To be more clear;

TW:WH 1 hasn't changed at all from TW WH 2 mechanics, no mechanics have been back-ported. Each faction does have some unique mechanics, but not all a unique resource. Empire is afaik the simplest, Dwarves have to not gain too many Grudges, Vampires have their money re-skinned as "dark magic", and can either use that or the dead from previous battles to raise soldiers, Bretonnians gain Chivalry and have to balance the amount of Peasant troops in their army, Wood Elves gain Amber and have to spend it for their powerful units (depending on which lord you pick), and so-on.

Mortal Empires is played in TW:WH 2. There is no Vortex, so I'm unsure as to whether the new factions care about their old unique resources anymore. But it does have the climate system, same as Vortex.

[Vitruviansquid]

To be more clear;

TW:WH 1 hasn't changed at all from TW WH 2 mechanics, no mechanics have been back-ported. Each faction does have some unique mechanics, but not all a unique resource. Empire is afaik the simplest, Dwarves have to not gain too many Grudges, Vampires have their money re-skinned as "dark magic", and can either use that or the dead from previous battles to raise soldiers, Bretonnians gain Chivalry and have to balance the amount of Peasant troops in their army, Wood Elves gain Amber and have to spend it for their powerful units (depending on which lord you pick), and so-on.

Mortal Empires is played in TW:WH 2. There is no Vortex, so I'm unsure as to whether the new factions care about their old unique resources anymore. But it does have the climate system, same as Vortex.

You do not have to care about way-fragments, scrolls of hekarti, warpstone, or tablets any longer in Mortal empires.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Honestly, I'd more anticipating Ikit as the next LL than any care I give for the tomb kings, hopefully he comes soon.

I hope he shows up. He'll probably have a sweet bonus to DOOMWHEELS!!! since he invented them!

[Grytorm]

Well I got the game for myself, the first version in the Old World. Pretty fun so far. Playing as dwarfs for now, restarted once because I could tell I could be doing a lot better, I wasted a lot of time the first time around when I didn't understand provincial unrest. So second time around at the point I quit I have better income, better armies, and three additional settlements. The only place I am behind is in tech structures at the capital, because quite a few places need to be built up.

[Olinser]

Well I got the game for myself, the first version in the Old World. Pretty fun so far. Playing as dwarfs for now, restarted once because I could tell I could be doing a lot better, I wasted a lot of time the first time around when I didn't understand provincial unrest. So second time around at the point I quit I have better income, better armies, and three additional settlements. The only place I am behind is in tech structures at the capital, because quite a few places need to be built up.

Unrest is actually beneficial though.

If you're paying attention at all you'll know exactly when a rebellion is going to occur and can have a Lord there to kill it immediately - and in the early game its a huge bonus to have rebellions because they give you a large infusion of gold and 1-2 levels on a Lord.

[Grytorm]

That makes sense, mostly my problems came down to poor time management with my first attempt, rebellions just added to that problem. Things proceed okay, lost a largish army to the undead. Still counts as a glorious victory however. Rebuilding will unfortunately take a while. The campaign against the grobi and the urk in the south is slowing down, I should recruit a third lord I think so I can push forward while holding off raiders.

[Olinser]

That makes sense, mostly my problems came down to poor time management with my first attempt, rebellions just added to that problem. Things proceed okay, lost a largish army to the undead. Still counts as a glorious victory however. Rebuilding will unfortunately take a while. The campaign against the grobi and the urk in the south is slowing down, I should recruit a third lord I think so I can push forward while holding off raiders.

I mean the big thing to understand about the Warhammer Total War is how to exploit the rather odd unit and combat resolution and casualties.

Namely, you only actually 'lose' units if you actually lose all of them in a fight. So the ideal way to tackle fights is to withdraw troops before they actually get below about 1/4 health to make sure you don't actually lose a unit(as long as that doesn't make you lose the fight). I've actually found its ideal to include in your main armies 1 of the heroes that has the increased Casualty Replenishment rate - in a town with a hero with 3 points in the Casualty Replenishment you can go from almost dead health to full in 2-3 turns.

The auto-resolve is also both really terrible and really good. It's terrible from a perspective that it dramatically over-values certain stats (ranged weapons and armor), and massively under-values other stats (magic/poison attacks, heroes, magic and fear). This means that frequently auto-resolve will make you lose combats that you can literally select all and right-click the closest enemy to win with a decisive victory.

It's really good from a perspective that if you significantly out-number the enemy, auto-resolve will let you win with almost zero casualties, in fact far fewer than you can actually pull off by fighting normally.

So auto-resolve is actually really useful when doing things like assaulting non-walled towns with a full army because it will let you lose significantly less casualties than normal.

[Cespenar]

Unrest is actually beneficial though.

If you're paying attention at all you'll know exactly when a rebellion is going to occur and can have a Lord there to kill it immediately - and in the early game its a huge bonus to have rebellions because they give you a large infusion of gold and 1-2 levels on a Lord.

Wait, you have Lords that aren't taking a city each turn? Apart from those that are moving to get in range of a city?

Joking aside, that does seem like a good strategy at early game.

[Blackhawk748]

So i gave Vlad a whirl, good lord him and Isabella are terrifying. I dropped both of them with half a stack of almost nothing but Bats, Skeleton warriors (the basic ones) and Zombies on Templehof and i face rolled them with little issue. I mean, ya, the Vargheists where helpful, but they didnt completely reshape the battle, Vlad and Isabella are just that good as force multipliers, especially when together.

Plus i cannot understate how great it is to buy a LL on turn 1.

[Grytorm]

Well I started again again. I tend to do that... Hopefully this will be the last time . Mostly grudges started to get out of control because of the undead, delayed getting involved with my northern neighbors. Now I have started obsessively thinking about what buildings I should build in regional capitals. Discovered that one type doesn't need higher ranks unless it goes with a different building, so that will free up space in the capital for something.

Edit: Well the chaos invasion thing is starting, which so far doesn't seem to bad. Well, so far I have only seen a few stacks in the South. Greenskins mostly taken care of, a few stray groups here and there plus uprisings. As for uprisings, those are a bit out of hand... but things will work themselves out. Probably send one of the armies around to squash them I guess as soon as they return from the now desolate vampire kingdoms. Also, capital now almost at level 5.

[Forum Explorer]

I recently finished the Lizardmen run for the Vortex campaign. Here are some thoughts:

1. Lizardmen are awesome.
2. Skaven kinda suck/are really easy to beat.
3. High Elf's are OP. Despite the ritual penalties they had better relations with my neighbors then I did.
4. High Elves are really OP. They have no hostile neighbors. I had to fight off Dark Elves and Skaven while they get to sit pretty and just confederate the whole island together.
5. They are so OP, they have actual special fortress cities that are hard to get past in order to actually get to the cities that matter.
6. If you aren't playing High Elves, be ready to interfere with their rituals. They won't fail them otherwise, and the computer certainly isn't equipped to do anything about them. I ended up having to interfere with the same ritual twice in order to get a lead.
7. The final battle is dead easy. I think my LL could have solo'd it. A full stack of 20 elite units made it a cakewalk.


I think I'll do a Dark Elf Super Campaign next. I've got some...issues to 'discuss' with the High Elves.

[Anteros]

Any tips for a new player who isn't particularly enjoying the game? I want to like it and I keep starting new games, but everything is just too convoluted and slow. It seems like there's a billion random rules to learn about every new situation that you only find through trial and error. A lot of it is the fact that I'm completely new to the Total War series.

Also, everything is just too slow. It takes forever for anything interesting to happen. Even battles feel tedious. Maybe this series just isn't for me.

[Olinser]

I recently finished the Lizardmen run for the Vortex campaign. Here are some thoughts:

1. Lizardmen are awesome.
2. Skaven kinda suck/are really easy to beat.
3. High Elf's are OP. Despite the ritual penalties they had better relations with my neighbors then I did.
4. High Elves are really OP. They have no hostile neighbors. I had to fight off Dark Elves and Skaven while they get to sit pretty and just confederate the whole island together.
5. They are so OP, they have actual special fortress cities that are hard to get past in order to actually get to the cities that matter.
6. If you aren't playing High Elves, be ready to interfere with their rituals. They won't fail them otherwise, and the computer certainly isn't equipped to do anything about them. I ended up having to interfere with the same ritual twice in order to get a lead.
7. The final battle is dead easy. I think my LL could have solo'd it. A full stack of 20 elite units made it a cakewalk.


I think I'll do a Dark Elf Super Campaign next. I've got some...issues to 'discuss' with the High Elves.

Skaven don't suck. The AI just sucks with Skaven because it is incapable of playing to their strengths and the auto-resolve is ludicrously biased against Skaven because of the nature of their army. Early Skaven are good because they're incredibly cheap to buy and maintain units so you can get a 20 stack army on your first lord incredibly cheaply and quickly. Level 1 units of Skavenslaves only cost 125 gold each with an upkeep of 19!!, and Clanrats are only 325 with an upkeep of 81. (compared, for instance, to the level 1 Dark Elf units of Bleakspears and Darkshards costing 450 and 600 with an upkeep of 112 and 150 each. Replace casualties when a unit is low health? Screw that noise just disband them and recruit a new 100% unit. Enemy brings 2 Lords of units? Bitch please, Skaven bring 4+ to the party at a time and still have 8 more on the other side of the map taking cities.

The AI can't do this. It just builds normal-sized (for other nations) armies of Skaven and wanders around with 1 lord at a time, which gets SLAUGHTERED if they are anywhere close to even in number with any other nation until the late game. They rarely survive past the early game because they can't take enemy towns and lose auto-resolves

When you get to late game Skaven top tier units get non-disposable, but they can hold their own against other armies and their war machines are incredibly good if used properly.

Late game Skaven artillery and archers are ludicrous - Gutter Runners can fire while moving and are fast, basically nothing but cavalry is going to catch them until they empty their entire ammo into something. Plagueclaw catapults are one of the best artillery in the game, and ideal strategy is just to throw away units of Skavenslaves to keep enemy in place while you annihilate the whole ball with artillery or just ram a Doomwheel into them. Who cares if the meat shield dies? Spend a few hundred gold and buy more.

That's basically the Skaven strategy. Tar pit them with disposable units while machines and strong units wipe them out strategically with acceptable disposable casualties. But again, the AI is incapable of doing this, unfortunately. So AI Skaven are a bad joke.

[Forum Explorer]

That's basically the Skaven strategy. Tar pit them with disposable units while machines and strong units wipe them out strategically with acceptable disposable casualties. But again, the AI is incapable of doing this, unfortunately. So AI Skaven are a bad joke.

Makes sense. That was the strategy on the table top too. In fact they were the only army in the game that could shoot into close combat, and would do exactly that, tie units up with slaves then unload with heavy weaponry.

Okay, so I can accept that AI Skaven are garbage even if the units themselves are not. It's like Eldar in Battlefleet Gothic. The Eldar AI was so bad, it was useless against other AI units. But the faction themselves were very strong, if extremely difficult to use.