Very Hard difficulty increases the upkeep of units by around 40% and increases the upkeep penalty for additional armies to 15%. So factions with bad economies like Vampire Counts and Beastmen will have a very hard time early on.
Only the races with stronger economies like the Dwarfs or Dark Elves can even afford a second army with just the income of the capital province.
So how does the charge stat work? I've always just more or less ignored it.
A damage bonus for 15 seconds after a charge
It applies to melee attack skill and weapon damage, and degrades rapidly from 100%, to 75%, to 50% etc.
It also has nothing to do with impact damage, which is some calculation of mass and speed.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
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Waffles or whateverPreviously known as, I shit you not, "Waffen"Registered Userregular
I jumped into Dark Elves today. Oh man. Malekith is comically powerful. Using that blade ability I think I managed to nearly solo an entire Skaven Army with him while my Army dealt with the reinforcements.
Dark Elves are hilarious to me after reading about the End Times and what happened with Malekith. Makes playing enjoyable because I know I am the one, true Phoenix King!
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited November 2017
I decided to boot Warhammer 1 back up and have another go at using Vlad. This time using a bit of @Goumindongs advice about how powerful Vampires are. Since using Kroq'gar a lot, I realized I wasn't actually using Vlad in combat. Then he's got those 2 Vampire heroes that come with his start.
Turn 2 I besieged Drakenhof. Close victory but holy crap. Vlad and one of the Vampires (I couldn't join the other in time) climbed the wall, hopped into the courtyard, and just made mince... bone? out of the Grave Guard. Then the zombies. Then more Grave Guard. By now the Vargheists had joined in, having killed the other Vargheists with the help of the Fell Bats. Vlad and the Vampire hero just standing around in a pile of blood and bones. The Blood Knights kicked the door in, and they made a rush for the middle and wiped out what was there. Vassalized Mannfred.
After that, I went right for Castle Templehof. This time Mannfred helped out. Skeleton and Zombie riff raff took the walls and bashed the door in, while Vlad and his two ladies went for a side wall, snuck in, wiped out a few regiments and went for the middle. Vargheists joined them and they killed the Vampire and Dire Wolves and took the castle.
Now these guys just auto win battles. I can't believe I was holding these guys back in my first attempt they just absolutely wreck whole regiments. It's turn 14 and I have all of Western Sylvania, one of Eastern Sylvania, Tempelhoffs wiped out, vassalized Mannfred to control all of Sylvania, and have taken Essen with Bechencroft (I think that's it's name) next, which will give me all of Ostermark. Much better than my last attempt where I was still trying to retake Sylvania by about turn 50.
So someone got me TW2 for my birthday and I'd picked up TW1 for like $12 as part of a humble monthly bundle but never had time to play it.
I've kicked off TW2 with a Skaven campaign, and having never played a Total War game before, the overworld UI is a bit daunting. There's lots of numbers and buttons and widgets and I'm not really sure what's important yet.
But my first battle was fun... tossed about some High elves.
When siegeing with Vlad knock the gates down rather than climb the wall. Your troops can wait somewhere safe but being on the ground prevents instant exhaustion.
Just to warn you, Skaven are the hardest faction to play in 2.
As for important numbers, if your public order gets too low (-100) it spawns a rebel army that will attack a province. Growth effects how fast you can upgrade settlements, and corruption causes quite a few issues depending on the type, and Skaven corruption is actually still bad for Skaven (it's big effect is dropping public order).
Saga's are standalone games that focus on a specific part of history, CA commented on the video in their Facebook page that it's similar to Fall of the Samurai in terms of scope etc.
The announcement video states the time and date with the tagline "kings will rise".
There's some hazy gameplay footage of the campaign map.
Video doesn't seem to be on YouTube just their Facebook page.
They've clarified that they have three historical games in development:
An Empire Divided Rome 2 dlc
Saga
A full new historical game
I've been having a lot of fun in the early campaign with mazdamundi, which for some reason I did not expect at all. Feels like a much harder start than malakith or tyrion, and so far I've had to rely on 90% skink armies. The solar engine bastilidon is a freaking tank.
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Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
I'd love to see a standalone about the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great ; the Viking Age was pretty interesting and Attila barely scratched the surface, the Viking unit rosters were kind of weak imo so a re-do with a more zoomed in focused map will be cool. Hyped again!
I'd love to see a standalone about the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great ; the Viking Age was pretty interesting and Attila barely scratched the surface, the Viking unit rosters were kind of weak imo so a re-do with a more zoomed in focused map will be cool. Hyped again!
I wonder if they are also using these as a way to beef up their political game. Smaller scale allows a lot more detail and hand-tailored events. They kind of left that to the wayside with Warhammer, while the political side of Attila and expansions felt like watered-down CK2.
Just to warn you, Skaven are the hardest faction to play in 2.
As for important numbers, if your public order gets too low (-100) it spawns a rebel army that will attack a province. Growth effects how fast you can upgrade settlements, and corruption causes quite a few issues depending on the type, and Skaven corruption is actually still bad for Skaven (it's big effect is dropping public order).
Wrote this up on my break from work, but now I can go more indepth.
You probably noticed that Skaven have food as a mechanic. Food is... kind of a pain depending on your lord, and the benefits for having it or lacking it aren't particularly noteworthy. The big advantage of food is you can spend it to upgrade freshly captured settlements and spend it on extra casts of the "Menace Below" ability that spawns clan rats. Though you also get casts of The Menace Below from Skaven corruption.
In terms of combat Skaven are fairly neat. Their standard line infantry are not great, aside from Storm Vermin (which are merely okay). They do have powerful specialists, artillery, and magic. Rat Ogres act like your cavalry, being fast hard hitting units. You wanna use them to run around melee infantry to harass ranged units or to smash into the flanks of enemy melee engaged with your troops. Gutter Runners/Night Runners are strong skirmishers, capable of getting around to attack enemies from behind or to harass enemy units and soften them up. Gutter Runners are also not bad melee combatants. Poison Wind Globadiers are good anti-large/armor, though they do not have amazing range, and Death Globe Bombadiers are great at shredding infantry. Warp-Fire Throwers I have had a lot of trouble using, but when they work they are pretty devastating. Plague Monks deal good damage, but are fairly fragile. Plagueclaw Catapults are strong anti-infantry and great in sieges, while Warp-Lightning Cannons are fantastic at blowing up monsters and cavalry, and aren't bad against infantry.
Skaven Magic is pretty powerful. The Lore of Ruin has Warp Lightning which is an amazing offensive spell for cost, as well as Death Frenzy, a powerful melee buff, and Howling Warp Gale is a great anti-flyer spell. Lore of Plague has Wither which is super good for anti-armor, Pestilent Breath which is decent damage and disrupts formations, Vermintide which allows you to summon extra clanrats to support your troops (and Pestilent Birth if you're using a Plague Priest is like an excellent upgrade), and Plague can deal significant damage if the enemy is locked down by your melee or stuck up on a wall. You pretty much always want a spellcaster in your army, whether it is a Grey Seer, a Plague Priest, or a Warlock Engineer.
Speaking of, Skaven heroes are quite good. Plague Priests get access to Pestilent Birth as mentioned and can get a Plague Furnace which is a pretty powerful mount. Warlock Engineers are spellcasters, somewhat sturdy, and buff your ranged units and artillery. Assassins are very good at taking out single targets, especially enemy mages and lords that are already engaged with an enemy.
Finally, I mentioned The Menace Below. This lets you summon clanrats anywhere on the map. This is extremely powerful. If the enemy's artillery is not protected, it's dead (unless it's on a dinosaur), their ranged units can be tied up, and if nothing else it lets you flank their melee. Skaven can also get an ability called Warp Charges on defense, and this meshes very well with The Menace Below. Warp Charges lets you sacrifice a unit at 50% health or lower to detonate a huge explosion that destroys infantry. Summon clanrats into a mass of enemies, watch their health drop, then nuke them.
I'd love to see a standalone about the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great ; the Viking Age was pretty interesting and Attila barely scratched the surface, the Viking unit rosters were kind of weak imo so a re-do with a more zoomed in focused map will be cool. Hyped again!
I wonder if they are also using these as a way to beef up their political game. Smaller scale allows a lot more detail and hand-tailored events. They kind of left that to the wayside with Warhammer, while the political side of Attila and expansions felt like watered-down CK2.
Warhammer II did introduce story chapter cutscenes which I would love to see continue. That said, CKII with Total War RTS battles would be my dream game
If you build public order buildings all over the place, skaven corruption isn't a big deal
The thing is also. Skaven public order buildings are also money buildings.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
From what I remember, all the Skaven buildings give pretty similar cash amounts and there's the one multiplier building that gets you really good income
From what I remember, all the Skaven buildings give pretty similar cash amounts and there's the one multiplier building that gets you really good income
Having buildings that generate 80 gold instead of 40, 50 or 60 gold makes quite a bit of a difference once it's multiplied.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
All the utility buildings are 80, while army buildings are lower if I recall. Though I kind of wish training buildings for your own clan's particular infantry gave good cash; that's how the great clans make money. Renting out troops and equipment.
And yeah, managing food is awful and kind of weird since it's mostly reliant on having pastures.
I found it way easier to just ignore it and treat the Skaven as though they have an inherent public order/leadership penalty.
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Waffles or whateverPreviously known as, I shit you not, "Waffen"Registered Userregular
edited November 2017
My Dark Elf game has been interesting. I took too long to expand initially and was met with a D-Day Invasion by Lothern I repelled them and managed to scrape together x3 ultra stacks and a mostly upgraded Black Ark and launched a counter invasion of Lothern. Had to smash through 12 stacks on Lothern (Not all at once) upon landing, but I managed to get a foothold and was not repelled. Once I wiped out stack #12 I realized there were no follow on waves, so I moved forward, took one of those Gates and had Malekith begin conquering the interior of Ulthuan. Meanwhile two Dreadlords began a campaign north and south on the peninsula. I halted the northern guy once I hit the Shrine of Khaine Province since it would slow my conquest down, made two conscript Armies, and put them on hold pattern up there. Overall, I've conquered all of the interior of Ulthuan and have a solo stack running up the last vestiges of hold outs. Its working in my favor because they decided to initiate the final chain of their ritual, spawning chaos stacks that are pillaging in the opposite direction all while ignoring me. Lothern finally managed to confederate Teclis near the end, which worked out really well because Teclis was buddy with those white insignia lizard people, but Lothern wasn't. Now they're at war in Lustria fighting for control.
During all of that though, the Cult of Pleasure has been fighting a stalemate with HexotI. think they're about to start up their final ritual and might lose a few ritual sites since the final ritual spawns a second stack and now they're at war with Teclis/Lothern, which is good for me since I'm super behind in the race. Biggest concern is the Last Defenders didn't die initially and control most of that Africa continent. They've been launching raids into the now Dark Elf occupied Lothern, which is cause for some concern.
Overall, Dark Elves have been fun. I think they'd be fun to play in the Mortal Empires campaign against Chaos since all of their ranged is armor piercing. I've definitely struggled the least as Dark Elves against Chaos stacks. My biggest gripe though playing Dark Elves was a lack of Global Recruitment and the whole Black Ark idea. Black Arks became more of an annoyance than helpful later on as I had to deal with doomstacks chasing my black ark around the ocean. Wasn't very fun.
Edit: After having this be my second Vortex Campaign, I'd have to say that I like a lot of the changes they've made. In game magic finally feels right. It's not overpowered, but it's not incredibly weak like it used to be. I find myself using it more now for damage than actual debuffs and it's awesome They found that perfect balance for it. Unique buildings are really fun. They're not overdone and sometimes I wish every province had a unique building. Vortex Campaign was a good break away from the traditional Total War game play. They took a risk with it, but I feel like it was a good, healthy mix up to the game.
My only cons I have with Warhammer 2 is that I wish they'd find a way to make micromanaging skills/abilities for heroes easier and settlements easier. I wish there were a template you could "pre build" to allocate skill points too automatically on level up, items, and settlement builds for if a settlement will be economy, military, general, etc. Creature comforts for macromanagement would be make the game less annoying as it drags on with dozens of armies, heroes, and hundreds of settlements mapwide. The new end turn/conditions feature was incredibly helpful, but they still have a ways to go. My last complaint is still customizable AI. They haven't found that balance between faceroll easy or getting stomped difficult yet. I kinda feel like it needs a custom Difficulty feature where you choose what kind of penalties/buffs you and the AI Get.
With Skrolk I could manage it, but with Queek in ME it has become kind of a losing battle. It's just not a good mechanic and completely fails at whatever they were trying to do with it. Warpstone should have been their big thing probably, as Skaven are known to perform near suicidal assaults for any warpstone and it fuels their entire economy and war effort. Their money is literally warpstone, their drugs are warpstone, their fuel is warpstone. Making it their ritual resource kind of makes sense, but is kind of undervalueing it.
But like, compare food to influence or slaves. Both have minor penalties, but are huuuuge boons when utilized.
With Skrolk I could manage it, but with Queek in ME it has become kind of a losing battle. It's just not a good mechanic and completely fails at whatever they were trying to do with it. Warpstone should have been their big thing probably, as Skaven are known to perform near suicidal assaults for any warpstone and it fuels their entire economy and war effort. Their money is literally warpstone, their drugs are warpstone, their fuel is warpstone. Making it their ritual resource kind of makes sense, but is kind of undervalueing it.
But like, compare food to influence or slaves. Both have minor penalties, but are huuuuge boons when utilized.
Being able to instantly start new settlements a few tiers up is a huge boon as well! It does sound like Queek needs some more food cities next to him in ME though -- Skrolk on ME is not an issue at all, and Queek on Vortex it was pretty easily managed as well. I haven't dove too deep into Queek on ME, buut it sounds like he needs a couple more pastures near his start.
Actually you don't really need pastures near your start. Early on the drain is sufficiently small that you can resist a fairly substantial food-drain by looting and fighting.
It's later on when you hit 5+ provinces that the need for pastures becomes a...craving. An urge. A drug.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
With Skaven I figure you should always have at least one stack raiding your own land and quashing upstarts at all times. If you're going to have happiness problems you may as well profit off of them. Plus it keeps loyalty up.
Actually you don't really need pastures near your start. Early on the drain is sufficiently small that you can resist a fairly substantial food-drain by looting and fighting.
It's later on when you hit 5+ provinces that the need for pastures becomes a...craving. An urge. A drug.
My comments are directly reflecting multiple people in the thread thinking the system needs to be scrapped entirely -- seems like some pastures would be an easy solution. There are a lot of ways to get food, pastures are just by far the least hassle.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
With Skaven I figure you should always have at least one stack raiding your own land and quashing upstarts at all times. If you're going to have happiness problems you may as well profit off of them. Plus it keeps loyalty up.
The problem with taxes is that everyone takes their cut each step of the way and you end up with nothing. Don't think of it as raiding. Think of it as turning your entire army into tax collectors who report directly to you.
+3
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Is the campaign map considerably slower in Warhammer 2? Playing Warhammer 1 again, and it feels like the campaign map is playing in fast forward. Having Vlad move around is like he's on speed or something. It's not framerate, as the animations are still smooth. But it just feels a lot slower.
Is the campaign map considerably slower in Warhammer 2? Playing Warhammer 1 again, and it feels like the campaign map is playing in fast forward. Having Vlad move around is like he's on speed or something. It's not framerate, as the animations are still smooth. But it just feels a lot slower.
It's in the settings. You can set the character animations to "Normal", "Fast" and "Fastest" in WH2 while Warhammer 1 has normal and sped up.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Is the campaign map considerably slower in Warhammer 2? Playing Warhammer 1 again, and it feels like the campaign map is playing in fast forward. Having Vlad move around is like he's on speed or something. It's not framerate, as the animations are still smooth. But it just feels a lot slower.
Yeah, with default settings TW2 will feel slow. But, they added a ton of ways to customize the camera, and you can speed it up. In the top left there's a camera button, and it lets you fine tune how fast the camera moves (for each individual faction if you're crazy -- you can also just set ally, self, neutral, and enemy) and if the camera will focus on the unit at all. I normally set myself and enemies to fast, allies to fastest, and neutral to fastest/don't even focus the camera on them. You can set it to not even move the camera for other factions if you'd like.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Strange, I don't remember setting the campaign map for Warhammer 1 to Sped Up. I'll have a look at the Warhammer 2 settings.
Strange, I don't remember setting the campaign map for Warhammer 1 to Sped Up. I'll have a look at the Warhammer 2 settings.
You can just hit spacebar in TW1 to turn on fast movement for everyone -- it's something I just do all the time without thinking of it. They changed that in 2 and my first runthrough was slooowwww, until I noticed the camera button was there (as spacebar no longer does that). I will say it seemed slower than my TW1 runs, but I've been using the speed up movement toggle in Total War games for so long that I probably was using it the entire time I played TW1.
With Skrolk I could manage it, but with Queek in ME it has become kind of a losing battle. It's just not a good mechanic and completely fails at whatever they were trying to do with it. Warpstone should have been their big thing probably, as Skaven are known to perform near suicidal assaults for any warpstone and it fuels their entire economy and war effort. Their money is literally warpstone, their drugs are warpstone, their fuel is warpstone. Making it their ritual resource kind of makes sense, but is kind of undervalueing it.
But like, compare food to influence or slaves. Both have minor penalties, but are huuuuge boons when utilized.
Being able to instantly start new settlements a few tiers up is a huge boon as well! It does sound like Queek needs some more food cities next to him in ME though -- Skrolk on ME is not an issue at all, and Queek on Vortex it was pretty easily managed as well. I haven't dove too deep into Queek on ME, buut it sounds like he needs a couple more pastures near his start.
It is... at start. When food will be the most limited. This advantage evaporates when every other faction is able to conquer a location and have it at tier 3 or 4. Then you are just paying a resource to be on par. Compare this to amazingly powerful lord/hero bonuses or the single most powerful economy in the game by a wide margin, or even just the highly upgraded troops (and no penalty) the Lizardmen incur.
With Skaven I figure you should always have at least one stack raiding your own land and quashing upstarts at all times. If you're going to have happiness problems you may as well profit off of them. Plus it keeps loyalty up.
This sort of works, but is awkward and becomes less feasible/rewarding the more you expand and is highly punishing on higher difficulties to manage a mechanic that is not even that rewarding.
Posts
Only the races with stronger economies like the Dwarfs or Dark Elves can even afford a second army with just the income of the capital province.
Turn 11 - some fool attempted a non-aggression pact.. haha. No.
A damage bonus for 15 seconds after a charge
It applies to melee attack skill and weapon damage, and degrades rapidly from 100%, to 75%, to 50% etc.
It also has nothing to do with impact damage, which is some calculation of mass and speed.
Dark Elves are hilarious to me after reading about the End Times and what happened with Malekith. Makes playing enjoyable because I know I am the one, true Phoenix King!
Turn 2 I besieged Drakenhof. Close victory but holy crap. Vlad and one of the Vampires (I couldn't join the other in time) climbed the wall, hopped into the courtyard, and just made mince... bone? out of the Grave Guard. Then the zombies. Then more Grave Guard. By now the Vargheists had joined in, having killed the other Vargheists with the help of the Fell Bats. Vlad and the Vampire hero just standing around in a pile of blood and bones. The Blood Knights kicked the door in, and they made a rush for the middle and wiped out what was there. Vassalized Mannfred.
After that, I went right for Castle Templehof. This time Mannfred helped out. Skeleton and Zombie riff raff took the walls and bashed the door in, while Vlad and his two ladies went for a side wall, snuck in, wiped out a few regiments and went for the middle. Vargheists joined them and they killed the Vampire and Dire Wolves and took the castle.
Now these guys just auto win battles. I can't believe I was holding these guys back in my first attempt they just absolutely wreck whole regiments. It's turn 14 and I have all of Western Sylvania, one of Eastern Sylvania, Tempelhoffs wiped out, vassalized Mannfred to control all of Sylvania, and have taken Essen with Bechencroft (I think that's it's name) next, which will give me all of Ostermark. Much better than my last attempt where I was still trying to retake Sylvania by about turn 50.
I've kicked off TW2 with a Skaven campaign, and having never played a Total War game before, the overworld UI is a bit daunting. There's lots of numbers and buttons and widgets and I'm not really sure what's important yet.
But my first battle was fun... tossed about some High elves.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
As for important numbers, if your public order gets too low (-100) it spawns a rebel army that will attack a province. Growth effects how fast you can upgrade settlements, and corruption causes quite a few issues depending on the type, and Skaven corruption is actually still bad for Skaven (it's big effect is dropping public order).
Saga's are standalone games that focus on a specific part of history, CA commented on the video in their Facebook page that it's similar to Fall of the Samurai in terms of scope etc.
The announcement video states the time and date with the tagline "kings will rise".
There's some hazy gameplay footage of the campaign map.
Video doesn't seem to be on YouTube just their Facebook page.
They've clarified that they have three historical games in development:
An Empire Divided Rome 2 dlc
Saga
A full new historical game
Someone said that it matches the east coast of Ireland, so people are thinking either Viking Invasion/Alfred the Great or Norman Conquest.
I wonder if they are also using these as a way to beef up their political game. Smaller scale allows a lot more detail and hand-tailored events. They kind of left that to the wayside with Warhammer, while the political side of Attila and expansions felt like watered-down CK2.
Wrote this up on my break from work, but now I can go more indepth.
You probably noticed that Skaven have food as a mechanic. Food is... kind of a pain depending on your lord, and the benefits for having it or lacking it aren't particularly noteworthy. The big advantage of food is you can spend it to upgrade freshly captured settlements and spend it on extra casts of the "Menace Below" ability that spawns clan rats. Though you also get casts of The Menace Below from Skaven corruption.
In terms of combat Skaven are fairly neat. Their standard line infantry are not great, aside from Storm Vermin (which are merely okay). They do have powerful specialists, artillery, and magic. Rat Ogres act like your cavalry, being fast hard hitting units. You wanna use them to run around melee infantry to harass ranged units or to smash into the flanks of enemy melee engaged with your troops. Gutter Runners/Night Runners are strong skirmishers, capable of getting around to attack enemies from behind or to harass enemy units and soften them up. Gutter Runners are also not bad melee combatants. Poison Wind Globadiers are good anti-large/armor, though they do not have amazing range, and Death Globe Bombadiers are great at shredding infantry. Warp-Fire Throwers I have had a lot of trouble using, but when they work they are pretty devastating. Plague Monks deal good damage, but are fairly fragile. Plagueclaw Catapults are strong anti-infantry and great in sieges, while Warp-Lightning Cannons are fantastic at blowing up monsters and cavalry, and aren't bad against infantry.
Skaven Magic is pretty powerful. The Lore of Ruin has Warp Lightning which is an amazing offensive spell for cost, as well as Death Frenzy, a powerful melee buff, and Howling Warp Gale is a great anti-flyer spell. Lore of Plague has Wither which is super good for anti-armor, Pestilent Breath which is decent damage and disrupts formations, Vermintide which allows you to summon extra clanrats to support your troops (and Pestilent Birth if you're using a Plague Priest is like an excellent upgrade), and Plague can deal significant damage if the enemy is locked down by your melee or stuck up on a wall. You pretty much always want a spellcaster in your army, whether it is a Grey Seer, a Plague Priest, or a Warlock Engineer.
Speaking of, Skaven heroes are quite good. Plague Priests get access to Pestilent Birth as mentioned and can get a Plague Furnace which is a pretty powerful mount. Warlock Engineers are spellcasters, somewhat sturdy, and buff your ranged units and artillery. Assassins are very good at taking out single targets, especially enemy mages and lords that are already engaged with an enemy.
Finally, I mentioned The Menace Below. This lets you summon clanrats anywhere on the map. This is extremely powerful. If the enemy's artillery is not protected, it's dead (unless it's on a dinosaur), their ranged units can be tied up, and if nothing else it lets you flank their melee. Skaven can also get an ability called Warp Charges on defense, and this meshes very well with The Menace Below. Warp Charges lets you sacrifice a unit at 50% health or lower to detonate a huge explosion that destroys infantry. Summon clanrats into a mass of enemies, watch their health drop, then nuke them.
Warhammer II did introduce story chapter cutscenes which I would love to see continue. That said, CKII with Total War RTS battles would be my dream game
The thing is also. Skaven public order buildings are also money buildings.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Having buildings that generate 80 gold instead of 40, 50 or 60 gold makes quite a bit of a difference once it's multiplied.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
And yeah, managing food is awful and kind of weird since it's mostly reliant on having pastures.
During all of that though, the Cult of Pleasure has been fighting a stalemate with HexotI. think they're about to start up their final ritual and might lose a few ritual sites since the final ritual spawns a second stack and now they're at war with Teclis/Lothern, which is good for me since I'm super behind in the race. Biggest concern is the Last Defenders didn't die initially and control most of that Africa continent. They've been launching raids into the now Dark Elf occupied Lothern, which is cause for some concern.
Overall, Dark Elves have been fun. I think they'd be fun to play in the Mortal Empires campaign against Chaos since all of their ranged is armor piercing. I've definitely struggled the least as Dark Elves against Chaos stacks. My biggest gripe though playing Dark Elves was a lack of Global Recruitment and the whole Black Ark idea. Black Arks became more of an annoyance than helpful later on as I had to deal with doomstacks chasing my black ark around the ocean. Wasn't very fun.
Edit: After having this be my second Vortex Campaign, I'd have to say that I like a lot of the changes they've made. In game magic finally feels right. It's not overpowered, but it's not incredibly weak like it used to be. I find myself using it more now for damage than actual debuffs and it's awesome They found that perfect balance for it. Unique buildings are really fun. They're not overdone and sometimes I wish every province had a unique building. Vortex Campaign was a good break away from the traditional Total War game play. They took a risk with it, but I feel like it was a good, healthy mix up to the game.
My only cons I have with Warhammer 2 is that I wish they'd find a way to make micromanaging skills/abilities for heroes easier and settlements easier. I wish there were a template you could "pre build" to allocate skill points too automatically on level up, items, and settlement builds for if a settlement will be economy, military, general, etc. Creature comforts for macromanagement would be make the game less annoying as it drags on with dozens of armies, heroes, and hundreds of settlements mapwide. The new end turn/conditions feature was incredibly helpful, but they still have a ways to go. My last complaint is still customizable AI. They haven't found that balance between faceroll easy or getting stomped difficult yet. I kinda feel like it needs a custom Difficulty feature where you choose what kind of penalties/buffs you and the AI Get.
But like, compare food to influence or slaves. Both have minor penalties, but are huuuuge boons when utilized.
Being able to instantly start new settlements a few tiers up is a huge boon as well! It does sound like Queek needs some more food cities next to him in ME though -- Skrolk on ME is not an issue at all, and Queek on Vortex it was pretty easily managed as well. I haven't dove too deep into Queek on ME, buut it sounds like he needs a couple more pastures near his start.
It's later on when you hit 5+ provinces that the need for pastures becomes a...craving. An urge. A drug.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
My comments are directly reflecting multiple people in the thread thinking the system needs to be scrapped entirely -- seems like some pastures would be an easy solution. There are a lot of ways to get food, pastures are just by far the least hassle.
The problem with taxes is that everyone takes their cut each step of the way and you end up with nothing. Don't think of it as raiding. Think of it as turning your entire army into tax collectors who report directly to you.
It's in the settings. You can set the character animations to "Normal", "Fast" and "Fastest" in WH2 while Warhammer 1 has normal and sped up.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Yeah, with default settings TW2 will feel slow. But, they added a ton of ways to customize the camera, and you can speed it up. In the top left there's a camera button, and it lets you fine tune how fast the camera moves (for each individual faction if you're crazy -- you can also just set ally, self, neutral, and enemy) and if the camera will focus on the unit at all. I normally set myself and enemies to fast, allies to fastest, and neutral to fastest/don't even focus the camera on them. You can set it to not even move the camera for other factions if you'd like.
You can just hit spacebar in TW1 to turn on fast movement for everyone -- it's something I just do all the time without thinking of it. They changed that in 2 and my first runthrough was slooowwww, until I noticed the camera button was there (as spacebar no longer does that). I will say it seemed slower than my TW1 runs, but I've been using the speed up movement toggle in Total War games for so long that I probably was using it the entire time I played TW1.
It is... at start. When food will be the most limited. This advantage evaporates when every other faction is able to conquer a location and have it at tier 3 or 4. Then you are just paying a resource to be on par. Compare this to amazingly powerful lord/hero bonuses or the single most powerful economy in the game by a wide margin, or even just the highly upgraded troops (and no penalty) the Lizardmen incur.
This sort of works, but is awkward and becomes less feasible/rewarding the more you expand and is highly punishing on higher difficulties to manage a mechanic that is not even that rewarding.