Main thing to keep in mind as TK is that you only go downhill from the beginning. Your extra armies are free, so you should always have the maximum available armies and they should never be less than a full stack. You're going to have to double team battles against certain factions early game, and make the best use you can of your free Ushabti summon. Your archers are surprisingly good and I tend to keep them in my armies even into the endgame. Choosing the redline buffs for skellies on your early generals is also advised. Tomb Scorpions and both types of Ushabti are unlocked by tier 4 settlements and that's when you really take off.
Your income only ever increases, so even though it's a huge investment for basic buildings now, it won't be late game. Prioritize a Necrotect to gain the ritual one, and use him to settle ruins at Tier 3 right off the bat.
One last tip: your building income and raiding income are nerfed, but IIRC battle income and mysterious island income are fixed. You can earn some major cash by setting your armies in enemy territory and letting them send impotent armies against you. Doesn't cost you a dime if YOU loose any units.
Tomb kings do have a penalty for mysterious island incomes. However, it's still a massive boost for TK.
I'm pretty sure that was added later because I recall when they launched getting full amounts from them.
Nah, ever since launch TK had much lower income from wrecks. Once I noticed how low their income was relative to other factions in my first playthrough (like 1 or 2 turns in like anybody else would), my first thought was "holy shit wrecks are kind of OP for every faction, but with TK it's going to be off the charts" before being pleasantly surprised that CA was aware of it and had built in the nerf to wreck income from the start.
0
Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
A random detail, which totally doesn't matter to Total War games but I find interesting nonetheless, is that Liu Bei's Peach Garden Oath - where three unrelated dudes swear an oath to be blood brothers for eternity - was a pretty damn unusual thing. Chinese society was quite strongly Confucian by this time, and Confucianism is all about pretty strict lines of descent, honoring ones ancestors and so on. Like there isn't much of an afterlife for those who aren't honored by their ancestors, it's a big deal. So you don't just get to swear that someone's now your brother - it just wasn't how the conception of family worked, at all. In fact hard-line Confucians tended to quite dislike that bit, sort of like how certain Christians might frown at certain overly-sexy bits in the bible.
At any rate one of the big influences of the peach garden oath was that it ended up being copied by certain underworld societies, such as the triad and yakuza. When you became a made man in the triad you literally became part of the family, swearing an oath that was modeled on the peach garden oath from Romance of the three kingdoms. And which according to the example laid forth by Liu Bei means you're literally part of a new family. It was one of the ways in which criminal societies claimed legitimacy, as well as portraying themselves as part of a long historical tradition, which wasn't really the case.
That reminds me so much of the Roman Triumvirates, though of course those always ended badly. I really need to learn more Chinese history, it's interesting contrasting with western history. Also makes me even more hyped for Three Kingdoms, knowing the lore always makes Total War games much more interesting IMO
Is uhh, is the slave cost for Hellebron's rejuvination going to increase by 100 forever, uncapped?
Because that sounds completely unsustainable on very hard/mortal empires games.
Yes, but it also becomes less and less necessary as the game goes on. Beat some of her objectives and the debuff to her is really minor. Also you're probably going to cap that resource at some point anyway.
Finally doing a HE campaign as the Everqueen and ya know the Vortex campaign does keep things engaging, only because I get bored with the "conquer everything" that ME campaign can boil down to or have to set short term goals not to get bored.
The influence system is a little wonky but overall cool since I enjoyed manipulating my enemies in Endless Legend and I get to do so here as well. I do get a laugh at the perks influence-less lords and heroes get and it's a nice way to instill influence as a necessary mechanic.
A random detail, which totally doesn't matter to Total War games but I find interesting nonetheless, is that Liu Bei's Peach Garden Oath - where three unrelated dudes swear an oath to be blood brothers for eternity - was a pretty damn unusual thing. Chinese society was quite strongly Confucian by this time, and Confucianism is all about pretty strict lines of descent, honoring ones ancestors and so on. Like there isn't much of an afterlife for those who aren't honored by their ancestors, it's a big deal. So you don't just get to swear that someone's now your brother - it just wasn't how the conception of family worked, at all. In fact hard-line Confucians tended to quite dislike that bit, sort of like how certain Christians might frown at certain overly-sexy bits in the bible.
At any rate one of the big influences of the peach garden oath was that it ended up being copied by certain underworld societies, such as the triad and yakuza. When you became a made man in the triad you literally became part of the family, swearing an oath that was modeled on the peach garden oath from Romance of the three kingdoms. And which according to the example laid forth by Liu Bei means you're literally part of a new family. It was one of the ways in which criminal societies claimed legitimacy, as well as portraying themselves as part of a long historical tradition, which wasn't really the case.
Keep in mind there is a pretty big difference between the Records of the Three Kingdoms (historical record) and Romance of the Three Kingdoms (fictional retelling).
Records was written in like the 3rd or 4th century, while Romance was written in the 14th. By the time Romance was written the religion(s) of China were becoming a crazy blend of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. The Mongols had also came and went and left their mark by the time Romance was written as well. Two centuries later Journey to the West would be written and explain how all the religions worked together (and also why Buddhism was the best part).
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I've reinstalled TWW1 and seriously considering doing campaigns there simply to avoid the ME end turn timers. On a fresh campaign, it's literally 8 seconds for Old World and 50 seconds for ME on my system, which probably explains why I've only played 2 ME campaigns to victory - feels like I spend more time browsing while waiting for my turn than actually playing.
It's just too bad that both CA and modders have abandoned it.
I've reinstalled TWW1 and seriously considering doing campaigns there simply to avoid the ME end turn timers. On a fresh campaign, it's literally 8 seconds for Old World and 50 seconds for ME on my system, which probably explains why I've only played 2 ME campaigns to victory - feels like I spend more time browsing while waiting for my turn than actually playing.
It's just too bad that both CA and modders have abandoned it.
Yeah, sorry, I guess that's what I meant. My laptop is on the lower end as it is, and I definitely don't have an SSD. On the other hand, pitting together all the factions is appealing idea to me, and not having to deal with Vortex rituals is even more appealing, having now been through the wringer myself.
Having an SSD doesn't help the turn times, only the load times. Turn times are all CPU load. Mortal Empires is pretty batshit long. My PC does TWWH 1 and 2 turns at about 20 seconds. Mortal Empire turn times are nearly 1 minute.
I've reinstalled TWW1 and seriously considering doing campaigns there simply to avoid the ME end turn timers. On a fresh campaign, it's literally 8 seconds for Old World and 50 seconds for ME on my system, which probably explains why I've only played 2 ME campaigns to victory - feels like I spend more time browsing while waiting for my turn than actually playing.
It's just too bad that both CA and modders have abandoned it.
Yeah, sorry, I guess that's what I meant. My laptop is on the lower end as it is, and I definitely don't have an SSD. On the other hand, pitting together all the factions is appealing idea to me, and not having to deal with Vortex rituals is even more appealing, having now been through the wringer myself.
Having an SSD doesn't help the turn times, only the load times. Turn times are all CPU load. Mortal Empires is pretty batshit long. My PC does TWWH 1 and 2 turns at about 20 seconds. Mortal Empire turn times are nearly 1 minute.
Lol, the CA forums. So every preview author and CA themselves have stated that heroes in the build they showed are op, and most of the units shown are peasants. Zhang fei has a Fear ability.
Most comments are argh blaghhh, the battles are too fast, CA is awful burn it down. What I'm saying is people on the internet are awful, and 3k looks awesome
I don't think that's any different from most major developer forums. With the exception of Warframe most game-forums are vats of vitrol.
But at least they're not as bad as no mutants allowed.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
+1
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited January 2019
I think I kind of prefer fast battles nowadays. With how long maps can load, the turn times of big maps like in Mortal Empires even with an SSD, the AI not really making big build up and climactic key battles a thing like Shogun 2 did, and how hard it is for me to read what to do in melee-based total wars I would rather have fast battles with key movements having immediate feedback rather than waiting around.
Yeah, I treat the Total War forums the same way I treat any other major dev forums - sometimes you can find some interesting discussion/speculation in there but you normally have to wade through some serious excrement to get to it.
It's impossible to judge how fast the battles will be yet for the reason already stated - they specifically made the Heroes OP as hell to show off their capabilities and abilities. These are likely the calibre of heroes you would be sending against end game units, not the rebels you fight on turn 1. I suppose it gives them all something to whinge about now that they can't complain about the marketing consisting of ONLY POSTERS until these videos released. The fans DESERVE MORE and the lack of video evidence means the game was DOOMED TO FAILURE.*
*This made me raise my glass to whoever it is in charge of the Total War twitter account.
Yeah, I treat the Total War forums the same way I treat any other major dev forums - sometimes you can find some interesting discussion/speculation in there but you normally have to wade through some serious excrement to get to it.
It's impossible to judge how fast the battles will be yet for the reason already stated - they specifically made the Heroes OP as hell to show off their capabilities and abilities. These are likely the calibre of heroes you would be sending against end game units, not the rebels you fight on turn 1. I suppose it gives them all something to whinge about now that they can't complain about the marketing consisting of ONLY POSTERS until these videos released. The fans DESERVE MORE and the lack of video evidence means the game was DOOMED TO FAILURE.*
*This made me raise my glass to whoever it is in charge of the Total War twitter account.
The CA forums are pretty bad IMO. Google's recommend function shows them to me fairly often and they're always a tar pit.
I wade through it for information occasionally, but more recently with so little going on for Warhammer stuff there's not much to find there. It's just kind of a fucking hole where the same few voices screech like banshees about their particular pet issues.
The Total War forums have been an infamous den of grognards since like, forever.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
The CA forums are pretty bad IMO. Google's recommend function shows them to me fairly often and they're always a tar pit.
Google keeps linking me to the most toxic threads there. I'm mostly ignoring them at this point.
But Google knows everything, so it must be linking you there for a reason. Maybe it's like that pregnancy ad thing, and you enjoy reading toxic threads, but you don't know it yet.
Edit: As a joke CA should make Lu Bu super shitty. Like TW2 release Grimgor shitty.
I'm just assuming here, but they can probably make him as overpowered as they like (They havn't, guan yu can duel him one on one and win from what we've seen) because we can't play as him and the way officers work even if you recruit him they've probably made him as big of an arse as he is in the story.
So even if you manage to recruit him it's like a ticking time bomb of civil war.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
I do genuinely think Ma Teng will be my second playthrough (after Cao Cao of course).
It's an interesting looking start position:
- You can very quickly become an economic powerhouse, by the looks of it, via dominating the silk road.
- Start as the only playable lord to be 'friendly' with Dong Zhuo, enjoying the early game protection that will bring from the chaos of the Central Plains.
- You start with Chang'An right there, so when Dong Zhuo is sufficiently weakened and/or murdered you can swoop in out of no where and be all 'Yeah, no hard feelings but I gotta protect the Emperor, see?'
- Your soldiers wear a delightful shade of purple!
Steam: TheBrayster
PSN: TheBrayster_92
0
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited February 2019
Each turn is a season, huh? I was wondering about that
Edit: The literal upgrade tree is lovely
Fencingsax on
+1
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
edited February 2019
After Liu Bei, I might be tempted to give Kong Rong a start. Secure your borders and try to play tall while the rest of China burns from all of the in-fighting.
Those rotting prometheans just became one of my favourite units in the game. They aren't kidding when they list them as defenders, they can survive for an eternity. But they also have really good damage and melee stats as well as armour piercing ranged that can fire while moving. They did so much work on most battles I just left my depth guard behind because 3 units of prometheans could tie up pretty much everything.
Mournghuls are also incredible, just really no downsides to either of these units. Really all of the monsters in this army are fantastic and never feel like a bit of a let down when you actually put them into battle. All the heroes are amazing as well.
Easily the best army that doesn't really require any standard infantry line at all, just monsters all the way.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
Those rotting prometheans just became one of my favourite units in the game. They aren't kidding when they list them as defenders, they can survive for an eternity. But they also have really good damage and melee stats as well as armour piercing ranged that can fire while moving. They did so much work on most battles I just left my depth guard behind because 3 units of prometheans could tie up pretty much everything.
Mournghuls are also incredible, just really no downsides to either of these units. Really all of the monsters in this army are fantastic and never feel like a bit of a let down when you actually put them into battle. All the heroes are amazing as well.
Easily the best army that doesn't really require any standard infantry line at all, just monsters all the way.
I keep some depthguard around (but yeah. rotting prometheans/rotting promethean gunnery mobs are my main line of battle). You don't want to run mournghuls or prometheans into specialized anti-large. But Depthguard will generally massacre those very same units.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I generally put my artillery + Necrofex on any anti-large infantry and they die/rout before they reach me.
The only units I didn't really care for were the deck droppers. Their ranged damage is too low for such a small unit size and a small ammo count. Combined with the usual fragility of flyers I just didn't see much use for them. I guess they're useful against someone like VC with no ranged attackers.
Also Skaven badly need a pirate cove mechanic, but for burrowing under cities. Options to include spreading skaven corruption, allowing you to deploy some units within settlement walls in a siege, and maybe some kind of movement bonus?
Rami on
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
I did not get deck droppers at first but their strength is in being able to consistently fire on a target, be it a lord or other special target, without having to worry about maintaining firing lines or shooting over friendly units.
They just don't have the stopping power as the ground powder and yes have the flier fragility so I did not use them as much but I respect their niche.
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Deck droppers were at one point multiplayer kings. Less interesting in SP when the AI is so dumb or otherwise unprepared to deal with the rest of what you can field.
Deck droppers with handguns are great for killing armored enemies. Deckdroppers with pistols or bombs, not so much.
They and Rotting promethian gunnery mobs are pretty much the only firearms troops I use, since zombies are just too slow to maneuver (and since they don't arc you have to maneuver). So for me it's all deckdroppers, artillery (carronades in the middle, Necrofexes on the flanks), blockers (prometheans and leviathans) and some hardcore flankers like Depthguard and Mournghuls. 6 artillery units, 6 prometheans/leviathans, lord, gunnery wight, 3 deckdroppers and 3 depthguard is a good mix for an elite army.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Posts
Nah, ever since launch TK had much lower income from wrecks. Once I noticed how low their income was relative to other factions in my first playthrough (like 1 or 2 turns in like anybody else would), my first thought was "holy shit wrecks are kind of OP for every faction, but with TK it's going to be off the charts" before being pleasantly surprised that CA was aware of it and had built in the nerf to wreck income from the start.
That reminds me so much of the Roman Triumvirates, though of course those always ended badly. I really need to learn more Chinese history, it's interesting contrasting with western history. Also makes me even more hyped for Three Kingdoms, knowing the lore always makes Total War games much more interesting IMO
Because that sounds completely unsustainable on very hard/mortal empires games.
I can't help but think of this scene every time someone talks about Dark Elves.
Yes, but it also becomes less and less necessary as the game goes on. Beat some of her objectives and the debuff to her is really minor. Also you're probably going to cap that resource at some point anyway.
The influence system is a little wonky but overall cool since I enjoyed manipulating my enemies in Endless Legend and I get to do so here as well. I do get a laugh at the perks influence-less lords and heroes get and it's a nice way to instill influence as a necessary mechanic.
Keep in mind there is a pretty big difference between the Records of the Three Kingdoms (historical record) and Romance of the Three Kingdoms (fictional retelling).
Records was written in like the 3rd or 4th century, while Romance was written in the 14th. By the time Romance was written the religion(s) of China were becoming a crazy blend of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. The Mongols had also came and went and left their mark by the time Romance was written as well. Two centuries later Journey to the West would be written and explain how all the religions worked together (and also why Buddhism was the best part).
It's just too bad that both CA and modders have abandoned it.
But yeah it's nice to do the Vortex campaign and not have to worry about having a mod installed.
Thanks for that, just tried it and it shaved off a good 10 seconds on a new Empire campaign.
I'm reasonably sure you still get achievements if you have mods enabled.
Most comments are argh blaghhh, the battles are too fast, CA is awful burn it down. What I'm saying is people on the internet are awful, and 3k looks awesome
But at least they're not as bad as no mutants allowed.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
It's impossible to judge how fast the battles will be yet for the reason already stated - they specifically made the Heroes OP as hell to show off their capabilities and abilities. These are likely the calibre of heroes you would be sending against end game units, not the rebels you fight on turn 1. I suppose it gives them all something to whinge about now that they can't complain about the marketing consisting of ONLY POSTERS until these videos released. The fans DESERVE MORE and the lack of video evidence means the game was DOOMED TO FAILURE.*
*This made me raise my glass to whoever it is in charge of the Total War twitter account.
PSN: TheBrayster_92
Google keeps linking me to the most toxic threads there. I'm mostly ignoring them at this point.
I have to admit I raised a really big eyebrow at the name Huang Zhong Hanzo before I realized it was an overwatch tie-in.
I wade through it for information occasionally, but more recently with so little going on for Warhammer stuff there's not much to find there. It's just kind of a fucking hole where the same few voices screech like banshees about their particular pet issues.
But Google knows everything, so it must be linking you there for a reason. Maybe it's like that pregnancy ad thing, and you enjoy reading toxic threads, but you don't know it yet.
Edit: As a joke CA should make Lu Bu super shitty. Like TW2 release Grimgor shitty.
I'm just assuming here, but they can probably make him as overpowered as they like (They havn't, guan yu can duel him one on one and win from what we've seen) because we can't play as him and the way officers work even if you recruit him they've probably made him as big of an arse as he is in the story.
So even if you manage to recruit him it's like a ticking time bomb of civil war.
It's an interesting looking start position:
- You can very quickly become an economic powerhouse, by the looks of it, via dominating the silk road.
- Start as the only playable lord to be 'friendly' with Dong Zhuo, enjoying the early game protection that will bring from the chaos of the Central Plains.
- You start with Chang'An right there, so when Dong Zhuo is sufficiently weakened and/or murdered you can swoop in out of no where and be all 'Yeah, no hard feelings but I gotta protect the Emperor, see?'
- Your soldiers wear a delightful shade of purple!
PSN: TheBrayster_92
Edit: The literal upgrade tree is lovely
---
Also:
https://3kcomic.totalwar.com/
I prefer a more support/defense play style and with a much better diplomacy system that seems like it might be very satisfying.
Those rotting prometheans just became one of my favourite units in the game. They aren't kidding when they list them as defenders, they can survive for an eternity. But they also have really good damage and melee stats as well as armour piercing ranged that can fire while moving. They did so much work on most battles I just left my depth guard behind because 3 units of prometheans could tie up pretty much everything.
Mournghuls are also incredible, just really no downsides to either of these units. Really all of the monsters in this army are fantastic and never feel like a bit of a let down when you actually put them into battle. All the heroes are amazing as well.
Easily the best army that doesn't really require any standard infantry line at all, just monsters all the way.
I keep some depthguard around (but yeah. rotting prometheans/rotting promethean gunnery mobs are my main line of battle). You don't want to run mournghuls or prometheans into specialized anti-large. But Depthguard will generally massacre those very same units.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The only units I didn't really care for were the deck droppers. Their ranged damage is too low for such a small unit size and a small ammo count. Combined with the usual fragility of flyers I just didn't see much use for them. I guess they're useful against someone like VC with no ranged attackers.
Also Skaven badly need a pirate cove mechanic, but for burrowing under cities. Options to include spreading skaven corruption, allowing you to deploy some units within settlement walls in a siege, and maybe some kind of movement bonus?
They just don't have the stopping power as the ground powder and yes have the flier fragility so I did not use them as much but I respect their niche.
They and Rotting promethian gunnery mobs are pretty much the only firearms troops I use, since zombies are just too slow to maneuver (and since they don't arc you have to maneuver). So for me it's all deckdroppers, artillery (carronades in the middle, Necrofexes on the flanks), blockers (prometheans and leviathans) and some hardcore flankers like Depthguard and Mournghuls. 6 artillery units, 6 prometheans/leviathans, lord, gunnery wight, 3 deckdroppers and 3 depthguard is a good mix for an elite army.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden