Oh my god. We're making moves as Cao Cao. I used the fact that Tao Qian and I are "friends" as an excuse to basically not build any extra armies and super-charge my economy while heading south and clearing easy conquests for more land for more peasant economy. Then I quickly summon three more full stacks, leave the coalition, declare war on Tao Qian (and by extension, Liu Bei), flank and annihilate two of Liu Bei's armies that were left surprised in the middle of my land, and then issue an imperial decree from the emperor under my control that Liu Bei has to make peace with me and pay me money for it
I'm watching Legend playing Taurox on Vortex and it's insane. Without any cheesing the game whatsoever he's fought 14 battles so far in one turn with one army, and it's probably going to go to at least 20.
Oh my god. We're making moves as Cao Cao. I used the fact that Tao Qian and I are "friends" as an excuse to basically not build any extra armies and super-charge my economy while heading south and clearing easy conquests for more land for more peasant economy. Then I quickly summon three more full stacks, leave the coalition, declare war on Tao Qian (and by extension, Liu Bei), flank and annihilate two of Liu Bei's armies that were left surprised in the middle of my land, and then issue an imperial decree from the emperor under my control that Liu Bei has to make peace with me and pay me money for it
This is the kinda shit you will not get in Warhammer 2
I really hope they bring forward the character and diplomacy stuff as much as they can for all their future games, it adds so much
If I recall correctly, the decision to make Total Warhammer more "war only" focused was a conscious one with how they allocated their resources. It's Warhammer, a lot of the races have deep seated blood fueds with eachother that probably shouldn't be resolved, and so they went all in on battle and unit variety. I wouldn't mind having both! But a Total War game is never going to compare to say, a Paradox game for diplomacy and character stuff, and I typically get my fix there now-a-days. If they want to blow the budget wide open and do both I wouldn't complain though, as long as it doesn't bog down the giant trolls smashing each other.
Sounds like it might actually be a "this is total war" campaign he might enjoy for once. He usually hates doing those.
edit: It's still turn 11.
It finally ends after around 2 hours of fights. He fought 27 battles (including the Taurox quest battle) and razed I think 6 settlements. What a turn.
A duck! on
+10
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Dang. I usually like to watch him streams on an off throughout the day. Today I was onsite all day setting up a new computer for a client and didn't get a chance to tune in. I'm going to have to skim through today's stream vod. Sounds like it was a crazy one.
0
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
“On campaign side we’ve now introduced the ability to craft runes and expanded the number of runes that you can equip onto your characters. Using the forge panel, you can now craft these runes. It’s split between two types – character runes and banner runes.
“Character runes are ones that you equip directly onto your lords and heroes to give them the classic buffs or tweaks to their ‘build.’ We’ve also added three specific rune slots to equip these in, meaning there’s no overlap with arcane items and weapons and such. You can mix and match freely.”
...
“Grudges have consistently had issues; they’ve been around forever. We wanted to move it away from being a system that just punishes you constantly. The grudge bar has been expanded with more tiers, there’s five instead of three, it’s not as easy to get locked into the negative side. Grudge generation has also been touched – it’s one of the oldest scripts in the game and it needed updating.”
There are a lot of details, but the basic version is grudges with better rewards, that are more interesting and varied, as well as easier to complete and with less punishing scaling if they go ignored in the late game. There are even benefits to having many unsolved grudges, as it makes Slayers more likely to show up in your Regiments of Renown pool. Plus, we’ve added UI and UX improvements so it’s easier to see which armies on the campaign map are the targets of grudges.
To better represent the lore of the Book of Grudges, there are also now various Legendary Grudges. “Each lord has their own set of four or so Legendary Grudges that they begin the game with. These are bigger things that help guide the flow of your campaign in some ways. It gives you objectives, grander things that you want to do.”
Folks like Thorgrim have even more, as well as receiving larger rewards from clearing their book. In addition, we’ve tweaked some techs to provide diplomacy with other Dwarfs to help offset the problems of high Grudge severity. The goal of all these changes is to make Grudges something that drives your campaign forward but doesn’t constantly get in the way of playing and doing fun stuff.
The Artefact Vault is where Thorek identifies the miraculous relics in the world and turn them into a selection of faction-wide buffs, runes, a unit or a hero. These can be mixed and matched as you like – a powerful hero or mind-controlled carnosaur today, perhaps powerful runes that can refresh your troops or devastate your enemies tomorrow? You’ll be able to see and target the individual pieces that make each artefact, deciding how to expand your empire and where to raid and explore.
“It leads you to fight with most of the cultures that are in Lustria. There are parts up with the Vampire Coast, with Lokhir and the Dark Elves, Skaven and Lizardmen are all over the place. It gives you this sense of journeying to locate these lost artefacts and reclaim them for the Dawi Empire. Rekindle the golden age.
...
In Vortex, Thorek starts in the Southern Spine of Sotek, surrounded by Lizardmen, Skaven and even some pesky High Elves. He stands ready to march on the Mine of the Bearded Skulls from the Thrice-Cursed Peak – his quest for the relics of his ancestors to restore the glory of the Dawi people begins here.
He also has access to the Rune of Doom once he mounts up on his Anvil of Doom. This is a spell that gives a temporary but massive increase to melee attack for his entire army, that also means they cause fear to enemies. It’s long-lasting and deadly and can cause any Dwarf army into a powerhouse at a key moment.
This all combos rather well with Thorek’s other campaign buffs:
Additional Oathgold from buildings, and reduced Oathgold cost for crafting runes.
Significantly cheaper and higher rank Runesmiths.
Jungle climate suitability – that one’s a gimme.
He also has the following improvements in battle for his army:
Reload time reduction for Bolt Throwers, Grudge Throwers, and Quarrellers
Extra armour-piercing weapon damage and extra armour
Lower miscast chance thanks to Kraggi, Assistant at the Forge
Another interesting note is Thorek’s start on Mortal Empires is completely different – indeed, on a different continent on the other side of the world. The Southlands Worlds Edge Mountains are the home of Karak Zorn and enemies in the form of Greenskins and various undead.
In cute news, Oxyotl’s starting Oracle, “The Oracle of the Sacred Plaques,” has a unique trait called Loremaster which notes his loyal Trogladon, C’hloe. It’s a reference to Loremaster of Sotek and his pupper Chloe.
Also Oracles are always mounted on Trogladons which is very nice. Good spread of spells, Fireball, Earthblood, Wind Blast, Flock of Doom, and Harmonic Convergence. Also they can get a Comet of Cassandora as a bound spell, but they take damage when they use it. Supposed to represent their arcane conduit ability, where the Oracle could be used as an origin point of magic for a different spellcaster, with a presumably off-screen Slann using it to cast Comet.
Dang. I usually like to watch him streams on an off throughout the day. Today I was onsite all day setting up a new computer for a client and didn't get a chance to tune in. I'm going to have to skim through today's stream vod. Sounds like it was a crazy one.
It was pretty awesome. Over the last year I've put his streams on if the campaign interests me (thanks for a year and a half of working at home COVID) and today was just catchup from an extended vacation during the holidays in the US, so I had it on for a good chunk of the day. I think his turn 11 lasted something like 17 or 18 battles with just Taurox's army (it lasted so long I had to bail around battle 14 for a meeting and was over by the time I got back a bit over an hour later, but was only Turn 14, so...). Taurox's rampage is just incredible if you get the right setup for it.
Oh, as for the Norsca stuff, I was going to respond, but good sense got the better of me. Its been a long time since I played a Norsca campaign, so rather than fit more of my foot into my mouth, I'll do a Norsca campaign post patch (and post Taurox) and then come back with thoughts on Throgg when I better know what I am talking about.
Now I have a usable mouse again it was time to get Alith Anar going again. It's been pretty wild. On the same turn the Deadwood Sentinels declare war on me they invite a stacked rogue army with full gold chevrons on the elf donut in so there's a huge army wrecking my newly confederated territory that has no armies and raising another will bankrupt me. United against us continues to be bullshit.
Tiranoc is such a rich province it's worth defending it but they immediately seiged Tor Anlec so getting enough troops is going to be difficult. I could send an army but Sloppy Crankshaft is patrolling nearby and of course declared war so it'll probably get wrecked on it's way there. That guy has no chill! I'm not worried about the Deadwood Sentinels, they will be easy to clean up fairly quickly. Just hoping that Morathi and Malekith break there military alliance and go to war after some sneaky shenanigans to stall a war until Alarielle confeds or the sentinels are toast. It's going to be hell if they also declare war in the next three turns.
0
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Hrmmmmmm. Think I ran into one of the everpresent infamous Alliance War bugs.
I was still in a 3 man Alliance with the Han Empire and Liu Yao's remnants. The Han Empire calls vote to form an Empire, Liu Yao votes yes. I vote no for obvious reasons and they form the Empire and I leave the Alliance.
Things proceed as normal for a few turns and then the Han Empire declares an Empire War against my Vassal that neighboured their holdings. I do -not- get a Call to Arms. I...don't think this should be allowed?
Not sure how much I want to keep going with this one with that bug. Might let them have my vassal and see if it repeats with another one, at which point I just declare back. I can see the end but it's going to be a painful slog to get there. Going to need to field real armies and stop buying territory and just finally go and kick the Han in the face. They have a ton of armies but they're at least half staffed with garbo militia as a legacy of being ex-Liu Bei and I think my garrisons and vassals can hold against those individually. I probably can subjugate them by beelining the two capitals they hold and I'm only one province away from one of them.
Some of the Lizardmen changes from reddit. It's likely incomplete. There was some discussion of further changes to skink tiers but details were missing so they were not included.
Units
Terradon Riders: t2
Terradon - Fireleech Bolas: t2. Weapon Crafter building requirements removed.
Chameleon Skinks: t2
Saurus: building line shifted up 1 tier. t2 for basic, t3 for shield variants.
Feral Bastiladon: down from t3 to t2.
Ark of Sotek Bastiladon: down from t4 to t2. Now has a vortex spell with a poison status effect that stacks with poison.
Ancient Stegadon: down from t5 to t4.
Kroxigors: t3 no longer require forge.
Tech
Tablet of Skinks line: All skink infantry can get poison attacks.
Sequence of Skirmishing: All skinks get vanguard deployment. Stalkers benefit from +10% missile strength.
Some of the Lizardmen changes from reddit. It's likely incomplete. There was some discussion of further changes to skink tiers but details were missing so they were not included.
Units
Terradon Riders: t2
Terradon - Fireleech Bolas: t2. Weapon Crafter building requirements removed.
Chameleon Skinks: t2
Saurus: building line shifted up 1 tier. t2 for basic, t3 for shield variants.
Feral Bastiladon: down from t3 to t2.
Ark of Sotek Bastiladon: down from t4 to t2. Now has a vortex spell with a poison status effect that stacks with poison.
Ancient Stegadon: down from t5 to t4.
Kroxigors: t3 no longer require forge.
Tech
Tablet of Skinks line: All skink infantry can get poison attacks.
Sequence of Skirmishing: All skinks get vanguard deployment. Stalkers benefit from +10% missile strength.
Lords
Tehenuain: starts with skink chief.
Seems mostly reasonable. Bastildons always came too late and Saurus too early compared to how powerful they actually are. Dunno about the fireleech bolas. They're insanely good in campaign.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
+6
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
The Aura of Madness and Spurting Bile-blood, as they’re so lovingly called, are its dangerous capabilities. In game terms, this comes down to constant poison and damage in combat, and additional damage to anything close that has low leadership. Even the most famed of monster killers are probably going to have problems if they operate as a pack rather than one extremely powerful unit.
Ben Leech, designer on the Silence & Fury team, gives us a rundown. “It’s got a long proboscis tongue, it’s got acid for blood, it’s an amalgamation of many different things slapped together and wrapped up in a horror theming.
“You want it to be attacking infantry, just because it can do so much damage in that aura. You can’t really blob it and send all your infantry in to surround it because they’ll all take damage, they’ll all be weaker because of it.”
Vick Gaza, Senior Creature Artist, also had some thoughts on putting together this rather magnificent beast.
“The Jabberslythe was the most challenging and complex creature I have done at Creative Assembly – by far. Knowing that it is a fan-favourite put in extra pressure for me to deliver an amazing piece.
Matthew Lewis, Lead Animator, oversaw the work on the Jabberslythe. Here’s his perspective on getting this thing to move.
“From an animation perspective, the Jabberslythe posed many challenges. It had to look realistic but obviously, there was no real-life footage to use as reference. Eva drew on a wide variety of sources, her in-depth knowledge of animal locomotion, and her abundant imagination in order to create a convincing performance for the Jabbeslythe.
“As part of this process, we decided that the creature should look ungainly. It shouldn’t move with agility and precision. It should shamble and lurch, not fully in control of itself. Not a creature of grace but an affront to nature. Eva had to make this ungainliness appear terrifying rather than comedic. A difficult balance to get right but one that I think she accomplished.
“Charlemagnes well spent. Also, I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but we did something new for the Jabberslythe’s matched combat…”
I am so happy that you can actually use kroxigars early on. they still aren't very good units for how expensive they are, but at least they come early now to stomp some low tier infantry
They're gonna have to hotfix the Rampage mechanic before launch, because somehow LoTW managed to actually break it. Not sure if this is the only way to do it, but he started a battle at 0 on the meter and apparently killed enough in that single battle that it gave more than enough to complete the bar. The game may not be programmed to handle a rampage beginning and ending at the same time and only processed the first trigger. He fought a few battles and the Rampage value didn't go down and even a restart didn't fix it. As long as he can average one fight for each move he can have the map wiped on turn 17.
A duck! on
+3
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Kong Rong report, Turn 167
The Nanmans have been subjugated. I just need to wait a turn for constructions to finish and then I can hand off the last two commanderies to new vassals. Technically Shi Xie's successor and Meng Huo are limping along as OPMs way way in the south but I can't be bothered. Ironically, I should have found a way to keep Zhurong alive even though she'd be an unreliable and dangerous vassal because by existing, everyone else loved me for war atrocities against her and that diplomod disappeared once she was eliminated. That huge diplomod was actually enough for my to Confederate Cao Cao (Lady Bian as successor) out from underneath being a Han vassal before my previous gripe post, who I then re-freed after cleaning up borders.
I'm teleporting my last army back and need to wait for them to muster after redeploying but I'm within 5 turns of taking a Han capital and 10 turns of taking both of theirs. 5-10 after that to take Wu's capital, presuming Han subjugates, and I think that's a wrap. Trying to force myself to finish this one out but the end's in sight. It's not obvious from the map but I have 2 armies sitting ready to strike the isolated capital that I've been able to buy territory to snake my way towards and I have 2 more ready to drive on their more developed capital. I'm also sitting near my army cap finally (and my trade power has taken a sizable hit) just to have armies ready to go to fight the Han directly.
In an unplanned but hilarious result of the way the campaign map has gone: because I'm sitting in the Central plains I've actually prevented the Han or Wu from actually making real moves against each other. I deny Military Access to both and so they drain supplies fast while trespassing over my vassals to try and get to each other. They can just about cross the center before attrition kicks in, then they turn back before making it into the opposite river. Afterwards, a stream of low HP stacks trickles back towards their home side. I've seen this happen once and I intend to try and time my wardec to catch the next wave and take them out in one swoop.
The Han Empire looks ripe for picking. You'd need maybe one army down south to support your allies if Wu makes a move.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The Han Empire looks ripe for picking. You'd need maybe one army down south to support your allies if Wu makes a move.
Yeah, I have 3 armies kicking around in the Central Plains to jump the wounded Han stacks when it's time, one in the east also because there's been a couple trying the water route, and one hanging around Luoyang's port to try and lock down that area.
But if Wu kicks things off before I can subjugate the Han and teleport stacks down, well, that's why I released the vassals in the first place. If they don't do idiotic things, they should be able to hold out in the garrisoned cities for a few turns.
The Council can do it now once a year potentially but that's dumb because the AI just levels up some really ?? choices most of the time.
0
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
edited July 2021
I feel so bad about this but it just wasn't close.
That is precisely 1.5 turns after declaring war on them. I took the isolated capital from my starting position along with 5 other provinces and killed or crippled 6 armies. Then the next turn I killed or crippled 4 more armies, finished off a couple already wounded ones, and took 3 more provinces. That swung the balance of power to +55 along with +50 recent losses and they were willing to toss in the towel.
I promptly saved and quit because it's going to take me a half hour to just go around and unfuck all those commanderies and figure out what I want to throw out to vassals and what I want to hold onto, level up all the new characters, and disband the worthless ones. Or just ignore it and get my forces south and YOLO into Wu and just end this campaign. (If anyone cares, I couldn't acquire all of his active armies+characters because I was already too close to cap, so I missed out on Lu Bu, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, and a couple other notables from their still active armies. I did get Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Wang Lang so that's something.)
If I was really optimizing I'd reload an earlier in the turn save and leave a couple of their notable character armies around as well as disband a few of my armies that I didn't strictly need and just keep checking balance of power until I just barely passed, then click Abdicate again in order to get as many of his characters as possible, but this is firmly in victory lap more at this point.
Is it weird that all the taurox videos have actually made me less enthusiastic about him? He's a beast, but I'm getting like. Performance anxiety.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Is it normal for the death events to fail to fire in 3 kingdoms?
I started a Liu bei game, beat up Cao cao and absorbed Tiao Quan and gradually got up to 7 or so commandries. Its 200 or so and Sun Ce is still alive - I don’t know if there is some randomness there though. Even more odd is that Dong Zhao is still kicking around doing his thing. Its looking like if nothing changes (yuan shao and Liu Cong’s wife are still around and fairly strong mid-size powers.) that Sun Ce and Dong will be the other 2 kings.
Is it normal for the death events to fail to fire in 3 kingdoms?
I started a Liu bei game, beat up Cao cao and absorbed Tiao Quan and gradually got up to 7 or so commandries. Its 200 or so and Sun Ce is still alive - I don’t know if there is some randomness there though. Even more odd is that Dong Zhao is still kicking around doing his thing. Its looking like if nothing changes (yuan shao and Liu Cong’s wife are still around and fairly strong mid-size powers.) that Sun Ce and Dong will be the other 2 kings.
Yeah, there's some randomness or there's also potentially some other associated triggers that have a chance of not being met as more DLC has come in. Sun Ce's still alive in my game and Dong Zhuo held on for a long time as well.
Is it normal for the death events to fail to fire in 3 kingdoms?
I started a Liu bei game, beat up Cao cao and absorbed Tiao Quan and gradually got up to 7 or so commandries. Its 200 or so and Sun Ce is still alive - I don’t know if there is some randomness there though. Even more odd is that Dong Zhao is still kicking around doing his thing. Its looking like if nothing changes (yuan shao and Liu Cong’s wife are still around and fairly strong mid-size powers.) that Sun Ce and Dong will be the other 2 kings.
Yeah, there's some randomness or there's also potentially some other associated triggers that have a chance of not being met as more DLC has come in. Sun Ce's still alive in my game and Dong Zhuo held on for a long time as well.
Yeah, maybe something happened with Lu Bu prior to the event firing. It does seem like Sun Ce is pretty random, sometimes it seems like he’s running around forever and sometimes he dies before Sun Quan even comes of age. IIRC someone said they kept having the event pop for them when he led a personal siege of a city, so maybe that just doesn’t happen sometimes for AI depending on who they have available.
I really wish there was some kind of mechanic to switch his faction effects over to his personal ones when he takes over and then back to the default Sun ones when/if Sun Quan takes over. Same with some other combinations, like if a player Liu Biao gets Liu Bei and makes him his heir and inherits it should switch to the Unity mechanics, or if Lu Bu takes over Dong’s faction (often happens as a player), then they should get momentum, although that would be insanely strong with Dong’s start.
Edit: Heck, something even better would be if a major faction leader like Cao Cao, Liu Bei, or Lu Bu gets defeated and hired by a minor/generic faction, they should have a chance of just taking over outright and playing on in the new location with their original mechanics. Then you could have situations like in history where you are doing fine as Liu Bei and all the sudden Lu Bu takes over a minor city on the border.
Jealous Deva on
0
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Perhaps the biggest difference between the other factions of the world and the Beastmen is the use of unit caps. Much like various regiments of renown, you can only have a certain number of each type of unit in your Beastmen armies. There will be many opportunities to increase these caps as you advance and expand.
This may seem like quite a limitation, and it does force some diverse compositions, but is made up for by the lack of upkeep on Beastmen units.
All units have a base capacity of one, so you can at least recruit one when you first have access to them.
Herdstones & Bloodgrounds
Rather than being purely roaming hordes, Beastmen can now set up herdstones in any empty settlement (sometimes they will need to ‘move’ the settlement’s inhabitents first).
This designates the surrounding area as a Bloodground – somewhere to hunt. Destroying settlements and defeating armies here causes Devastation, which can be turned into Marks of Ruination with the herdstone Ritual of Ruin. This is the core of your campaign progression.
You can leave behind herdstones as you like, but you have a maximum number allowed, and enemies can destroy them as they would towns. They have unique buildings that effect the area around them and prevent resettlement until they are destroyed.
Ruination
Ruination controls your progress through the campaign, governing your number of armies, costs of horde buildings, and unlocking unit capacity for some units.
It also gains you more Herdstone shards, which are what control how many Herdstones you can have raised at once.
Dread
Dread is the measure of just how good a Beastmen commander you are. Destroy, burn, pillage, kill, and you will accrue it.
Dread can be spent on an endless number of things – unit caps, new Legendary Lords, buffs, items, you name it.
Dread spent on Herdstone upgrades mean that Herdstones will start at that new minimum level.
Challenges of the Dark Gods
Rather than traditional technology, Beastmen must now earn the favour of the Gods through specific actions. This then unlocks options that can be awarded quickly.
These challenges range from fairly standard looting and killing of a certain number of people, to more challenging and specific ones that require you to fight in certain climates or against certain enemies.
Certain Legendary Lords will be better at some than others – Taurox is a champion of winning multiple battles in a turn, for example.
Returning mechanics
Beastmen still operate as a Horde, so while Herdstones allow for the recruitment of some units and act as a focal point on the map, you are still building up an army that can reinforce itself as you move.
Moon mechanics return, with better results.
Bestial Rage continues, but now only effects the growth of your horde. Kill, burn, and grow.
Favour is still in place, though no Beastmen units still require upkeep. There is still a cost in constructing buildings and agent actions, and you could always spend those riches on some Ogre Mercenaries or trade it for valuable boons…
LegendOfTotalWar has a more serious video where he takes this Ogre "doomstack", turns the battle difficulty up to Very Hard and does some analysis of the various unit's strengths and weaknesses. TLDR version;
As expected, their strength is incredibly high charge bonus, to go with their expected high melee strength
Their weaknesses seem to be missile units since they have no missile resistance and low armor, and anti-large in general
In terms of individual units, the regular Ogres aren't that great, being basically just slightly better trolls
Maneaters with great / dual weapons are good
Maneaters with Ogre pistols are okayish. They seem to suffer from the same issues that any hybrid unit does; being okay at two things but not really great at anything. Think of them as Free Company on steroids.
Mournfang Cavalry are pretty great
They would probably be really strong paired with a Life wizard for healing, given that they're all high HP low model units, but Legend also mentions Archaon and Wurzag as potentially being good generals for an Ogre-heavy army since they give blanket buffs to all their units. Wurzag's bonus physical resistance seems like it would be super strong!
Mr Ray on
+2
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Other than their value in battle, it should also be noted that they're Siege Attackers. This can be useful for you early in a campaign if you're crapstacking with Wizards and you just need to hire one to be able to start siege battles and can then win those by cheesing the AI.
Other than their value in battle, it should also be noted that they're Siege Attackers. This can be useful for you early in a campaign if you're crapstacking with Wizards and you just need to hire one to be able to start siege battles and can then win those by cheesing the AI.
Yeah, I think their usefulness in campaign is going to vary greatly depending on what faction you're playing as. For Empire they're perfect, since they're lacking in strong front-line infantry and cavalry, and that's exactly what Ogres bring to the table. If you're playing as Orcs or Undead, they've already got plenty of monstrous units that fill that role already.
I'm curious whether Ogres will show up in the New World, or whether they're strictly an Old-World thing. Lore-wise I don't think there are any Ogres in the New World.
For Empire they're perfect, since they're lacking in strong front-line infantry and cavalry, and that's exactly what Ogres bring to the table.
Demigryph knights would like to have a word with you on the lack of strong cavalry...
For dwarfs on the other hand they're perfect since dwarfs tend to be defensively focused (although the runesmith rework has changed that quite a bit with Rune of Speed) and have no cavalry or monstrous units at all. Good picks for Empire, Brettonia, Skaven and a few other factions. I'm thinking they're less of a good pick for greenskins these days since the addition of superior troll variants and black orc heroes?
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I'm curious whether Ogres will show up in the New World, or whether they're strictly an Old-World thing. Lore-wise I don't think there are any Ogres in the New World.
From watching some Thorek and Oxyotl preview streams: they do.
+1
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
edited July 2021
Kong Rong wrap-up:
Just teleported all my armies down and waited for mustering to finish but didn't even need that, since the game ended once I deep striked the capital and took it instantly after wardec since Changsha is just too exposed to the river. Always a good benchmark to me if you can win the game before your original ruler kicks the bucket, assuming they weren't one of the really old guys at the start. (Maybe riding down all those retreating peasants kept him fit for that many years.)
And that puts a bow on TW3K for me. Didn't get any of the new DLC and so haven't done a Lu Bu rampage campaign or a Nanman campaign and never actually bothered with the Yellow Turbans or 8 Princes, but I think that's sufficient variety for ~250 hours.
8 princes is something I would absolutely play through at least once, my campaigns have always ended up fun with it, but ymmv. I feel like for all its faults it is an underrated campaign.
One day I want to make a mod that just imports a lot of portraits for special characters into 8 princes.
Also guv (who did a bunch of warhammer mods) did a whole 8 princes focused mod series.
Jealous Deva on
0
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Oxyotl is a merciless predator to the forces of Chaos, and his armies are similarly agile, stealthy, and powerful. His Visions of the Old Ones issues missions across the map on a regular basis, allowing him to teleport between hot zones of Chaos activity and thwart their plans at every turn. The machinations of the powers of Chaos are great, and there will likely be more missions than there is time. Each has unique rewards, as well as unique downsides for allowing Chaos to succeed. Balancing this and choosing your path is the most important part of Oxyotl’s gameplay.
His access to the Silent Sanctums works in combination with this. Ancient and ruined Lizardmen temples exist the world over, near every major settlement. Oxyotl has first-hand knowledge of them, creating powerful local effects for the region and sometimes adjacent ones. Whether this is used for reconnaissance, to buff an already-owned region, or to prep for an invasion is up to you.
With Oxyotl’s faction able to inhabit any climate, and his army never taking penalties for trespassing, and huge buffs to Skink units, Oxyotl is a unique and interesting start in the wild north of the Deadwood. After clearing your local area, expansion opportunities include the areas of the world you are bidden to via Visions of the Old Ones as well as adjacent areas. His army teleportation applies only to his own, but he can return to his capital city or one other defined location, picked by you and changeable through buildings, whenever he likes. As you can imagine, the advantages and variety of this only redoubles in Mortal Empires.
As you unlock more Silent Sanctums, Oxyotl will be drawn into his inevitable showdown with Taurox and his Beastmen Horde. As a unit on the battlefield, Oxyotl is an incredible sniper, a devastating ranged unit that most cannot find, nevermind hurt. He is also an expert against Chaos and his presence is demoralising for them.
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The Northern Expansion died for this.
This is the kinda shit you will not get in Warhammer 2
I really hope they bring forward the character and diplomacy stuff as much as they can for all their future games, it adds so much
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
edit: It's still turn 11.
If I recall correctly, the decision to make Total Warhammer more "war only" focused was a conscious one with how they allocated their resources. It's Warhammer, a lot of the races have deep seated blood fueds with eachother that probably shouldn't be resolved, and so they went all in on battle and unit variety. I wouldn't mind having both! But a Total War game is never going to compare to say, a Paradox game for diplomacy and character stuff, and I typically get my fix there now-a-days. If they want to blow the budget wide open and do both I wouldn't complain though, as long as it doesn't bog down the giant trolls smashing each other.
It finally ends after around 2 hours of fights. He fought 27 battles (including the Taurox quest battle) and razed I think 6 settlements. What a turn.
Also Oracles are always mounted on Trogladons which is very nice. Good spread of spells, Fireball, Earthblood, Wind Blast, Flock of Doom, and Harmonic Convergence. Also they can get a Comet of Cassandora as a bound spell, but they take damage when they use it. Supposed to represent their arcane conduit ability, where the Oracle could be used as an origin point of magic for a different spellcaster, with a presumably off-screen Slann using it to cast Comet.
It was pretty awesome. Over the last year I've put his streams on if the campaign interests me (thanks for a year and a half of working at home COVID) and today was just catchup from an extended vacation during the holidays in the US, so I had it on for a good chunk of the day. I think his turn 11 lasted something like 17 or 18 battles with just Taurox's army (it lasted so long I had to bail around battle 14 for a meeting and was over by the time I got back a bit over an hour later, but was only Turn 14, so...). Taurox's rampage is just incredible if you get the right setup for it.
Oh, as for the Norsca stuff, I was going to respond, but good sense got the better of me. Its been a long time since I played a Norsca campaign, so rather than fit more of my foot into my mouth, I'll do a Norsca campaign post patch (and post Taurox) and then come back with thoughts on Throgg when I better know what I am talking about.
Tiranoc is such a rich province it's worth defending it but they immediately seiged Tor Anlec so getting enough troops is going to be difficult.
I was still in a 3 man Alliance with the Han Empire and Liu Yao's remnants. The Han Empire calls vote to form an Empire, Liu Yao votes yes. I vote no for obvious reasons and they form the Empire and I leave the Alliance.
Things proceed as normal for a few turns and then the Han Empire declares an Empire War against my Vassal that neighboured their holdings. I do -not- get a Call to Arms. I...don't think this should be allowed?
Not sure how much I want to keep going with this one with that bug. Might let them have my vassal and see if it repeats with another one, at which point I just declare back. I can see the end but it's going to be a painful slog to get there. Going to need to field real armies and stop buying territory and just finally go and kick the Han in the face. They have a ton of armies but they're at least half staffed with garbo militia as a legacy of being ex-Liu Bei and I think my garrisons and vassals can hold against those individually. I probably can subjugate them by beelining the two capitals they hold and I'm only one province away from one of them.
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Lords
Seems mostly reasonable. Bastildons always came too late and Saurus too early compared to how powerful they actually are. Dunno about the fireleech bolas. They're insanely good in campaign.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The Nanmans have been subjugated. I just need to wait a turn for constructions to finish and then I can hand off the last two commanderies to new vassals. Technically Shi Xie's successor and Meng Huo are limping along as OPMs way way in the south but I can't be bothered. Ironically, I should have found a way to keep Zhurong alive even though she'd be an unreliable and dangerous vassal because by existing, everyone else loved me for war atrocities against her and that diplomod disappeared once she was eliminated. That huge diplomod was actually enough for my to Confederate Cao Cao (Lady Bian as successor) out from underneath being a Han vassal before my previous gripe post, who I then re-freed after cleaning up borders.
I'm teleporting my last army back and need to wait for them to muster after redeploying but I'm within 5 turns of taking a Han capital and 10 turns of taking both of theirs. 5-10 after that to take Wu's capital, presuming Han subjugates, and I think that's a wrap. Trying to force myself to finish this one out but the end's in sight. It's not obvious from the map but I have 2 armies sitting ready to strike the isolated capital that I've been able to buy territory to snake my way towards and I have 2 more ready to drive on their more developed capital. I'm also sitting near my army cap finally (and my trade power has taken a sizable hit) just to have armies ready to go to fight the Han directly.
In an unplanned but hilarious result of the way the campaign map has gone: because I'm sitting in the Central plains I've actually prevented the Han or Wu from actually making real moves against each other. I deny Military Access to both and so they drain supplies fast while trespassing over my vassals to try and get to each other. They can just about cross the center before attrition kicks in, then they turn back before making it into the opposite river. Afterwards, a stream of low HP stacks trickles back towards their home side. I've seen this happen once and I intend to try and time my wardec to catch the next wave and take them out in one swoop.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
But if Wu kicks things off before I can subjugate the Han and teleport stacks down, well, that's why I released the vassals in the first place. If they don't do idiotic things, they should be able to hold out in the garrisoned cities for a few turns.
I use solely this these days
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1803671821
The Council can do it now once a year potentially but that's dumb because the AI just levels up some really ?? choices most of the time.
That is precisely 1.5 turns after declaring war on them. I took the isolated capital from my starting position along with 5 other provinces and killed or crippled 6 armies. Then the next turn I killed or crippled 4 more armies, finished off a couple already wounded ones, and took 3 more provinces. That swung the balance of power to +55 along with +50 recent losses and they were willing to toss in the towel.
I promptly saved and quit because it's going to take me a half hour to just go around and unfuck all those commanderies and figure out what I want to throw out to vassals and what I want to hold onto, level up all the new characters, and disband the worthless ones. Or just ignore it and get my forces south and YOLO into Wu and just end this campaign. (If anyone cares, I couldn't acquire all of his active armies+characters because I was already too close to cap, so I missed out on Lu Bu, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, and a couple other notables from their still active armies. I did get Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Wang Lang so that's something.)
If I was really optimizing I'd reload an earlier in the turn save and leave a couple of their notable character armies around as well as disband a few of my armies that I didn't strictly need and just keep checking balance of power until I just barely passed, then click Abdicate again in order to get as many of his characters as possible, but this is firmly in victory lap more at this point.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I started a Liu bei game, beat up Cao cao and absorbed Tiao Quan and gradually got up to 7 or so commandries. Its 200 or so and Sun Ce is still alive - I don’t know if there is some randomness there though. Even more odd is that Dong Zhao is still kicking around doing his thing. Its looking like if nothing changes (yuan shao and Liu Cong’s wife are still around and fairly strong mid-size powers.) that Sun Ce and Dong will be the other 2 kings.
Fair but I never cheese or ultimate strat like the video makers do. It just gives me tips for how to play them.
I also look forward to using those units in multi which is a different can of worms.
Yeah, maybe something happened with Lu Bu prior to the event firing. It does seem like Sun Ce is pretty random, sometimes it seems like he’s running around forever and sometimes he dies before Sun Quan even comes of age. IIRC someone said they kept having the event pop for them when he led a personal siege of a city, so maybe that just doesn’t happen sometimes for AI depending on who they have available.
I really wish there was some kind of mechanic to switch his faction effects over to his personal ones when he takes over and then back to the default Sun ones when/if Sun Quan takes over. Same with some other combinations, like if a player Liu Biao gets Liu Bei and makes him his heir and inherits it should switch to the Unity mechanics, or if Lu Bu takes over Dong’s faction (often happens as a player), then they should get momentum, although that would be insanely strong with Dong’s start.
Edit: Heck, something even better would be if a major faction leader like Cao Cao, Liu Bei, or Lu Bu gets defeated and hired by a minor/generic faction, they should have a chance of just taking over outright and playing on in the new location with their original mechanics. Then you could have situations like in history where you are doing fine as Liu Bei and all the sudden Lu Bu takes over a minor city on the border.
LegendOfTotalWar has a more serious video where he takes this Ogre "doomstack", turns the battle difficulty up to Very Hard and does some analysis of the various unit's strengths and weaknesses. TLDR version;
They would probably be really strong paired with a Life wizard for healing, given that they're all high HP low model units, but Legend also mentions Archaon and Wurzag as potentially being good generals for an Ogre-heavy army since they give blanket buffs to all their units. Wurzag's bonus physical resistance seems like it would be super strong!
Yeah, I think their usefulness in campaign is going to vary greatly depending on what faction you're playing as. For Empire they're perfect, since they're lacking in strong front-line infantry and cavalry, and that's exactly what Ogres bring to the table. If you're playing as Orcs or Undead, they've already got plenty of monstrous units that fill that role already.
I'm curious whether Ogres will show up in the New World, or whether they're strictly an Old-World thing. Lore-wise I don't think there are any Ogres in the New World.
Demigryph knights would like to have a word with you on the lack of strong cavalry...
For dwarfs on the other hand they're perfect since dwarfs tend to be defensively focused (although the runesmith rework has changed that quite a bit with Rune of Speed) and have no cavalry or monstrous units at all. Good picks for Empire, Brettonia, Skaven and a few other factions. I'm thinking they're less of a good pick for greenskins these days since the addition of superior troll variants and black orc heroes?
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
From watching some Thorek and Oxyotl preview streams: they do.
Just teleported all my armies down and waited for mustering to finish but didn't even need that, since the game ended once I deep striked the capital and took it instantly after wardec since Changsha is just too exposed to the river. Always a good benchmark to me if you can win the game before your original ruler kicks the bucket, assuming they weren't one of the really old guys at the start. (Maybe riding down all those retreating peasants kept him fit for that many years.)
And that puts a bow on TW3K for me. Didn't get any of the new DLC and so haven't done a Lu Bu rampage campaign or a Nanman campaign and never actually bothered with the Yellow Turbans or 8 Princes, but I think that's sufficient variety for ~250 hours.
One day I want to make a mod that just imports a lot of portraits for special characters into 8 princes.
Also guv (who did a bunch of warhammer mods) did a whole 8 princes focused mod series.