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 think people said this was changed to "r" for some reason.
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.
This is excellent! Thank you
I'm still in the "no idea what I'm doing" stage, but this gives me a good base of what units actually do.
I've always found that in every situation where I wanted a Rat Ogre I wanted a Doomwheel more.
In every situation where I wanted a Doomwheel, then I goddamn wanted a Doomwheel.
It's fast, powerful on the charge, relatively tough and shoots warp lightning everywhere.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The faq states they're using an improved version of the Atilla engine with numerous upgrades.
Is Warhammer a different engine?
You know, that's a great question. They have so many different Total War dev teams now that I wonder if they all use different engines or share the various changes they make. Obviously the Warhammer team has their own engine, the Rome II expansion seems to be an updated Rome II engine (or is it an updated Attila engine?), that Total War Arena engine, and now Total War Sagas which uses an updated Attila engine. I love how CA has invested so heavily in their franchise, but I wonder how coordinated the different teams are with each other
Zavian on
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
The faq states they're using an improved version of the Atilla engine with numerous upgrades.
Is Warhammer a different engine?
It was my understanding that Warhammer used the same engine as Attila with a bunch of upgrades and tweaked values so, maybe?
Warhammer 1 at least uses the same engine as Atilla you can see some of the outdated database entries there when using DAVE
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Not a big fan of vikings but doing a Brytenwalda expansions is rad.
To be honest I'm only going to be like "Hell yeah!" If they give me something from the Early modern Era to the Victorian era if we're doing Europe again, or if they do an Asian based Total War.
This Mazdamundi campaign is kicking my ass, it's turn 80 and there are seven angry druchii stacks invading from the north and the worst thing about them are all the darkshards.
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Waffles or whateverPreviously known as, I shit you not, "Waffen"Registered Userregular
edited November 2017
I'm on the final leg of my Dark Elf Campaign now. Conquered Ulthuan. The Last Defenders actually confederated Mazdamundi. I deliberately didn't confederate Morathi as shes been keeping the Ulthuan exiles and the Last Defenders in Lustria busy, but now I have the Defenders attacking Ulthuan by Sea. Only perk about that is my Armies > theirs at Sea for Auto Calc and lightning strike by a large margin. I don't see myself going for a world domination in this game as most of the world at this point is Dark Elves and Lizard people with some Ulthuan exiles near Great Turtle Isle. Just 20 more turns and I can shelf this game.
This Mazdamundi campaign is kicking my ass, it's turn 80 and there are seven angry druchii stacks invading from the north and the worst thing about them are all the darkshards.
That's why I want to play Dark Elves in the Mortal Empires Campaign. Knowing that my basic, tier 1 Archer unit is the absolute counter to 4/5s their roster. their being Chaos
This Mazdamundi campaign is kicking my ass, it's turn 80 and there are seven angry druchii stacks invading from the north and the worst thing about them are all the darkshards.
Since your ranged units aren't worth a damn, just go wide with Saurus Warriors and Temple Guard and just crush them in the infantry slog. Maybe some solar engines to blow holes in the darkshards if you have to have the big dinos. It's cheap and effective, unless they have a big stack of Har-Ganeth Executioners.
I wouldn't rule out lizard ranged units, poison, fast and the chameleons have massive passive resistance to ranged as well as decent melee stats. But your monstrous units are probably where it's at, push through the melee as your sauros bog them down and chase them off.
Thanks for the tips, I've been trying different approaches in this epic clash. Malekith and morathi are allied with 54 regions between them, it's just a nonstop flood right now. I'm not sure what the long term strategy is, but I'm getting better at fighting them.
Skinks are fast and shielded. You can send them in to take the hits from darkshards and flank.
You can also do a lot of damage to darkshards with the Lore of Heavens Skink Priest's windblast.
This is my favorite tactic right now. Turns out skinks are really really good for their cost. I use them as filler for all my stacks to keep the upkeep down, put them on the flanks and send them after the darkshards/bolt throwers. A couple of javelin skinks are great too for their debuff on infantry and fending off mounted darkshards. I've got a wind blaster in each of my four stacks, the overcast version is absolutely insane.
Sensational on
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited November 2017
So I flubbed my Vampires campaign. I got overeager, and after taking Bechen... whatever, I turned my sights on Avaland, which was a much tougher nut to crack. Then Mannfred descided he didn't like being a vassal anymore.
Lucky I have a save from before I decided to try to crack Avaland. I'm considering going back and just taking out Mannfred first to have Drakenhof and not have an unstable ally in my backline. Mannfreds army is pretty pissweak but it appears Drakenhofs garrison is rather insane. Also he's got Kemmler with a much larger army. But before I do this I'll need some harder forces. Vampires needing to recruit locally really hurts.
Have been holding off on this one a bit until I got the new video card... Which I now have. Pretty sure it's going to be Dark Elf raiding all night long. Video gaming can have some real high moments.
Autoresolve has no appreciation for the power of skinks and ancient stegadons. Which is great because it means the AI will actually try to attack in the field.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
I've found auto resolve consistently undervaluing Lizardmen in general.
Autoresolve has no appreciation for the power of skinks and ancient stegadons. Which is great because it means the AI will actually try to attack in the field.
Honestly, I think AI undervalues shields. Black Guard, Executioners and Shades...great. But not against an army that features those levels of ranged firepower and in general superior mobility. The only Shielded units in his line are the darkshards and dark riders.
Replace some of his units with Bleakswords and the match would have been much more dark elf favorable (at least in the hands of a human player).
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Autoresolve has no appreciation for the power of skinks and ancient stegadons. Which is great because it means the AI will actually try to attack in the field.
Honestly, I think AI undervalues shields. Black Guard, Executioners and Shades...great. But not against an army that features those levels of ranged firepower and in general superior mobility. The only Shielded units in his line are the darkshards and dark riders.
Replace some of his units with Bleakswords and the match would have been much more dark elf favorable (at least in the hands of a human player).
That's so true, that composition is a small front line of elite infantry without shields that got withered down by ranged attacks. Those niche units like harpies, dark riders, shades are almost a waste of a slot when not used to their strengths.
It's interesting, the first waves of DE were harder to handle because they had practically the same army composition as I did when I played as them: corsairs, dreadspears, bleakswords, darkshards and bolt throwers. That's a solid stack all around. Now in these later stacks, the AI clearly has access to more recruitment options and the result is a mishmash of stuff that's higher tier but less effective. Except for the malekith stack with five black dragons that I had to gang up on.
Averland should not be hard to crack. Vlad and Isabella and the starting vamps can likely solo any earlyish game empire Garrison and 1 full stack of enemy units.
The trick is to
A: not scale the walls
B: keep as many of your forces out of engagement and hidden as possible.
A does three things
1) It allows you to use non-wall only spells
2) It does prevents you from insta-exhausting due to climbing the ladder
3) It bunches the enemies up in an area where their artillery will shell themselves.
The higher the difficulty the more dangerous any Greatsword units are, so make sure to focus those down. The longer the game goes on the less likely that the empire will have mortars defending. Mortars do basically zero damage to you because of your highish armor and the fact that you're all hero's. But the empire will launch them into the middle of the scrum anyway, slaughtering their own low armor infantry line.
edit: Derp FOUR things
4) It prevents "Army Losses" morale shock from cascading your heroes to crumbling/disintegrating.
No hitpoints, no armor, low attack and shitty defense. They're not even that fast.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Posts
I think people said this was changed to "r" for some reason.
This is excellent! Thank you
I'm still in the "no idea what I'm doing" stage, but this gives me a good base of what units actually do.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
In every situation where I wanted a Doomwheel, then I goddamn wanted a Doomwheel.
It's fast, powerful on the charge, relatively tough and shoots warp lightning everywhere.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I know Historical fans felt quite neglected, so the fact that they are getting a new game and an expansion pack soon is great news.
Also I loved Medieval Total War Viking Invasion, so this is great news. A modern Historical Total War game.
Is Warhammer a different engine?
You know, that's a great question. They have so many different Total War dev teams now that I wonder if they all use different engines or share the various changes they make. Obviously the Warhammer team has their own engine, the Rome II expansion seems to be an updated Rome II engine (or is it an updated Attila engine?), that Total War Arena engine, and now Total War Sagas which uses an updated Attila engine. I love how CA has invested so heavily in their franchise, but I wonder how coordinated the different teams are with each other
It was my understanding that Warhammer used the same engine as Attila with a bunch of upgrades and tweaked values so, maybe?
It'd be pretty wasteful and inefficient for each team to be working with a different engine.
Hopefully the Warhammer improvements will be there
Faq also says they'll be gameplay in the spring of 2018.
Vikings, Anglo Saxons and Gaelic tribes confirmed so far.
Focussed alot on Alfred the great and content takes you up to around 1066.
Warhammer 1 at least uses the same engine as Atilla you can see some of the outdated database entries there when using DAVE
To be honest I'm only going to be like "Hell yeah!" If they give me something from the Early modern Era to the Victorian era if we're doing Europe again, or if they do an Asian based Total War.
That's why I want to play Dark Elves in the Mortal Empires Campaign. Knowing that my basic, tier 1 Archer unit is the absolute counter to 4/5s their roster. their being Chaos
Since your ranged units aren't worth a damn, just go wide with Saurus Warriors and Temple Guard and just crush them in the infantry slog. Maybe some solar engines to blow holes in the darkshards if you have to have the big dinos. It's cheap and effective, unless they have a big stack of Har-Ganeth Executioners.
You can also do a lot of damage to darkshards with the Lore of Heavens Skink Priest's windblast.
This is my favorite tactic right now. Turns out skinks are really really good for their cost. I use them as filler for all my stacks to keep the upkeep down, put them on the flanks and send them after the darkshards/bolt throwers. A couple of javelin skinks are great too for their debuff on infantry and fending off mounted darkshards. I've got a wind blaster in each of my four stacks, the overcast version is absolutely insane.
Lucky I have a save from before I decided to try to crack Avaland. I'm considering going back and just taking out Mannfred first to have Drakenhof and not have an unstable ally in my backline. Mannfreds army is pretty pissweak but it appears Drakenhofs garrison is rather insane. Also he's got Kemmler with a much larger army. But before I do this I'll need some harder forces. Vampires needing to recruit locally really hurts.
Honestly, I think AI undervalues shields. Black Guard, Executioners and Shades...great. But not against an army that features those levels of ranged firepower and in general superior mobility. The only Shielded units in his line are the darkshards and dark riders.
Replace some of his units with Bleakswords and the match would have been much more dark elf favorable (at least in the hands of a human player).
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
That's so true, that composition is a small front line of elite infantry without shields that got withered down by ranged attacks. Those niche units like harpies, dark riders, shades are almost a waste of a slot when not used to their strengths.
It's interesting, the first waves of DE were harder to handle because they had practically the same army composition as I did when I played as them: corsairs, dreadspears, bleakswords, darkshards and bolt throwers. That's a solid stack all around. Now in these later stacks, the AI clearly has access to more recruitment options and the result is a mishmash of stuff that's higher tier but less effective. Except for the malekith stack with five black dragons that I had to gang up on.
The trick is to
A: not scale the walls
B: keep as many of your forces out of engagement and hidden as possible.
A does three things
1) It allows you to use non-wall only spells
2) It does prevents you from insta-exhausting due to climbing the ladder
3) It bunches the enemies up in an area where their artillery will shell themselves.
The higher the difficulty the more dangerous any Greatsword units are, so make sure to focus those down. The longer the game goes on the less likely that the empire will have mortars defending. Mortars do basically zero damage to you because of your highish armor and the fact that you're all hero's. But the empire will launch them into the middle of the scrum anyway, slaughtering their own low armor infantry line.
edit: Derp FOUR things
4) It prevents "Army Losses" morale shock from cascading your heroes to crumbling/disintegrating.
Hell, zombies are a better unit than harpies.
If I want a disposable flying unit, take bats
No hitpoints, no armor, low attack and shitty defense. They're not even that fast.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden