I usually don’t run more than two artillery pieces with Skaven.
Enough to make holes in walls if I have to, and to make armies want to march toward me. But it’s the jezzails and the mortars that do the heavy lifting and the gatlings to dispatch anything that made it through the long range withering hail of death.
A Skryre gun line with workshop upgrades is absolutely insane. Like I can take out half or more of an army before they even get in archer range.
Sieges are a slog though.
The new mortars make sieges trivial
Those poison wind mortars? I only have 1 in my army. Should I replace one of my 4 catapults with another?
thing is, the explosion puts a damage dot on the whole unit it strikes. It is actually one of the more obnoxiously powerful units in the whole game. I think 2 mortars is more than enough to clear some walls for your rats.
As skyre I do one of two strategies depending on the state of the game.
Early game I just mob the front line with slaves, use the weapons teams to clear flanks, and have the catapults focus on the mob in the front. You can wedge your way through into a siege this way as well. get a unit of rats on the other side of the gate, watch as the AI mobs it with everything it has on the ground, then use magic/mortars/artillery to destroy the blob.
Late game I switch out some slaves with doomwheels/doom cycles, switch out catapults for cannons.
Can any one explain how the AI difficulty works in Coop? Were doing a Wazug and Grimgor campaign. He chose hard and I chose normal. I'm being swamped by armies from Border Princes, Tilea, Karak Hime....
How does the game decide what campaign difficulty it goes with?
A Skryre gun line with workshop upgrades is absolutely insane. Like I can take out half or more of an army before they even get in archer range.
Sieges are a slog though.
The new mortars make sieges trivial
Those poison wind mortars? I only have 1 in my army. Should I replace one of my 4 catapults with another?
1 is probably enough, but if you have the workshop upgrade that lets them wither I can see the appeal.
I think the real secret to sieges is to have Plague priests in the army. An overcast Plague will annihilate blocks, especially if you can get a few to stack up with a Menace Below.
PW Mortars are very good at cleaning up what's left after using plague magic to soften stuff up. That's what I use them for.
Don't sleep on Plague priests. They are a very strong unit. Their summons have been nerfed a few times but they're still busted. Fire, Life, Vamps and Plague are my top 4 lores.
Can any one explain how the AI difficulty works in Coop? Were doing a Wazug and Grimgor campaign. He chose hard and I chose normal. I'm being swamped by armies from Border Princes, Tilea, Karak Hime....
How does the game decide what campaign difficulty it goes with?
there are two different difficulty settings, if he picked hard it might be only for the actual a battles
the AI is always massing stacks of crappy units, so that's pretty normal
With skryre I always used dedicated armies for sieging. Like 4 plaguewind mortar, warlock (because honestly, warp lightning is also a great spell for sieges) and 3xWarp lightning cannons.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
The optimal Skaven weapons team doomstack is as follows. Gray Seer with lore of plague. 2 Warplock Engineers. 4 Plague Priests, 1 Poison Wind Mortar, 4 Warplock Jezzails, 4 Rattling Gunners, and 4 Plagueclaw Catapults. However, when sieging a settlement, I have been known to send a full stack of Poison Wind Mortars and Plagueclaw Catapults to the battle.
Did they change the way forced march and underway travel works? Now if I use force march the following turn I have only ~half movement available, there's a small penalty for underway travel as well. Is this just an orc thing? Or one of my million mods?
If you traverse from land to water or vice versa without using a port, then the next turn you will have 50% move available.
I can't help but feel that the diplomacy system in WH2 could still use a bit of work, mostly because I've just discovered the awesome power of the "Join War against" diplomacy option. If you're not aware, it allows you to bypass the problem of "I want to declare war on this guy, but I don't want to also get stuck in a war with their powerful friends" by joining an existing war as an ally instead of declaring war yourself directly. Unlike a normal war declaration, this doesn't allow the defender to bring in their allies to defend. And since this is obviously highly beneficial to either side, they are very likely to accept regardless of how they feel about you, occasionally they will need a small bribe. I've been able to use this technique to declare war on a minor dwarf faction without pissing off papa Thorgrim, by joining the war of a Skaven faction who absolutely despises me, and a war against the Border Princes by joining the Pirates of Sartosa, who didn't even need a bribe to convince to let me join.
I would feel bad about using it except the AI frequently uses it against you; bringing in much more powerful allies when you're just about to defeat them to trap you in a war that only ends once you've killed your enemy and their friends, and their friend's friends, and their friend's friend's friends...
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I will be beginning my Warhammer Total War 2 Skaven playthrough probably this weekend.
I do wish this game let me "paint" my armies the colors I want though.
If I ever play Bloodbowl norsca again I'll have to name my team captain Marauder Mike.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I've been playing an Imrik ME campaign and it's been a lot of fun. I managed to get the jump on Grims and wipe out his 'Ardboys with the Dwarfs pinching from the other side. Of course, I've been at war with Naggarond since turn 20. At Turn 110, with Ulthuan almost completely under my dominion, Malekith seems to be ignoring his own Chaos invasion to keep sending full stack armies at me every dang turn. I finally nabbed a trade port at Zandri (or whatever Khemri's port settlement is called) but Imrik has been occupied pacifying that area so I can't send him north to let his dragons eat Malekith.
The reduced growth is real annoying though. I just got a few Tier 5 cities around Turn 90 or so, but they're all by my starting province so useless for timely recruiting. I finally paid off Tyrion to join me a couple turns ago and Lothern was still only Tier 4. I'd have waited a bit longer but it was under siege by vampirates and likely to fall.
I definitely prefer Imrik's Vortex position. You start working with the other HEs in a much more timely manner. ME feels too bifurcated, since you've got your confederated Caledor trying to rope in all the other HE LLs before they get wiped out or picked up by Tyrion, and then half a world away you have Imrik stomping Greenskins. Letting Imrik trade from the ports near him would go a long way to making his ME campaign more tolerable though. By the time you can actually trade overseas, you're practically guaranteed to be so powerful everyone hates you.
All that said, Imrik is such a beast in combat. I love watching him 3 shot enemy LLs. That alone is enough to make his campaign worth playing.
I am trying to hold the line on not buying the remastered Rome because it looks like a cash grab. But man.... nostalgia is a helluva force. Thankfully, the mods were the main reason I played that older version.
The reviews of Rome Remastered are not kind especially considering the remastering team knew all of the complaints about the original game and issues that needed to be addressed.
Yes, it is definitely quite concerning. I don't think this would be another WC3Reforged-like fiasco ~ but the Remaster has some glaring flaws such as the UI and BAI which should have been addressed.
One review I read was basically “yeah its high res rome total war but why the fuck would anyone want to play that in 2020?” and thats basically been my take since the beginning.
I feel like they would have been a lot better either putting the effort into a medeival 2 remaster or doing an updated version of Rome 2.
I believe it's been said that Rome Remastered was done pretty much entirely by Feral Interactive (a dev that has partnered in the past with CA, and mainly focuses on porting games).
There's probably an interesting story in how it came to be, as it does seem so random.
I believe it's been said that Rome Remastered was done pretty much entirely by Feral Interactive (a dev that has partnered in the past with CA, and mainly focuses on porting games).
There's probably an interesting story in how it came to be, as it does seem so random.
It could be something as simple as wanting to see how people respond to some of the older mechanics, like how population used to be a numeric value that reduced when you trained troops. The $30 price point leads me to view the release the same way they do the Total War Saga releases as a way to test mechanics out in the wild. And this was probably cheaper and quicker since the base of the original Rome was already there.
I wish that Feral didn't make the UI so clunky and un-intuitive ~ it was fine in the original.
That factor alone was enough to make me refund it.. shame.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
So Skyre has proven to be zero fun so far.
Both AIs next to me have just sat on their capitals with two entirely full stacks of armies + garrison doing nothing. When I walk towards one the other just comes with both stacks and razes my capital. If I sit here and do nothing I just get absolutely nowhere except clicking "End turn" a lot.
Really fucking hate how the AI can maintain massive armies with no penalty. How can you be maintaining two full stacks on one or two settlements?
Your best bet is to be sneaky and use trickery. Move your army outside your city and use ambush to goad the AI into attacking. The AI genuinely can't see your army when it's in ambush stance and will walk into it. If that doesn't work, you can always move around in underway stance and tempt the AI into attacking that. Downside is that you'll need to win the battle or you'll lose the army, but the map should work heavily in your favour if you have a weapons team based army.
The AI in the game is bullshit though. They can basically ignore economy entirely and have perfect intel. I get that AI needs to cheat to be a challenge, but it can get frustrating when the cheating is blatant.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited May 2021
I did do that: They come with two full stacks, while I think having a settlement (maybe 2?) each. It's a bit frustrating. I restarted the campaign and this time Tilea didn't almost instantly declare war on me. So I can fight only one side. It's still bullshit seeing two huge enemy stacks just sitting there doing nothing but wait for me.
Edit: I am really trying to enjoy this, but it's really draining the fun to see the AI just camp every settlement with 2+ armies and not give a fuck about the fact they can't possibly afford that many units. Is there a start for skaven that is actually fun and has more than two grindy and immensely obnoxious options as the only places to go? Also just as soon as I got my second province attacking Estalia, Tilea declared war, rolled in with 3+ stacks of greatswords, mortars and halberdies backed by handgunners and just mowed everything down. What is the normal way to actually do this? Just sit there and hope the AI is dumb enough to not notice undercities with bombs and just bomb them out?
Edit2: Yes, yes that totally works. I bomb one flank and expand aggressively on the other. Is that intended? I don't know. But it works!
I did do that: They come with two full stacks, while I think having a settlement (maybe 2?) each. It's a bit frustrating. I restarted the campaign and this time Tilea didn't almost instantly declare war on me. So I can fight only one side. It's still bullshit seeing two huge enemy stacks just sitting there doing nothing but wait for me.
Edit: I am really trying to enjoy this, but it's really draining the fun to see the AI just camp every settlement with 2+ armies and not give a fuck about the fact they can't possibly afford that many units. Is there a start for skaven that is actually fun and has more than two grindy and immensely obnoxious options as the only places to go? Also just as soon as I got my second province attacking Estalia, Tilea declared war, rolled in with 3+ stacks of greatswords, mortars and halberdies backed by handgunners and just mowed everything down. What is the normal way to actually do this? Just sit there and hope the AI is dumb enough to not notice undercities with bombs and just bomb them out?
Nah, using undercity bombs for early conquests is way too slow. I tend to beat Tilea and Estalia using ambushes, either by baiting outside their capitols or by taking their minor settlements and waiting for them to send armies to take them back. It's certainly not easy though.
I did do that: They come with two full stacks, while I think having a settlement (maybe 2?) each. It's a bit frustrating. I restarted the campaign and this time Tilea didn't almost instantly declare war on me. So I can fight only one side. It's still bullshit seeing two huge enemy stacks just sitting there doing nothing but wait for me.
Edit: I am really trying to enjoy this, but it's really draining the fun to see the AI just camp every settlement with 2+ armies and not give a fuck about the fact they can't possibly afford that many units. Is there a start for skaven that is actually fun and has more than two grindy and immensely obnoxious options as the only places to go? Also just as soon as I got my second province attacking Estalia, Tilea declared war, rolled in with 3+ stacks of greatswords, mortars and halberdies backed by handgunners and just mowed everything down. What is the normal way to actually do this? Just sit there and hope the AI is dumb enough to not notice undercities with bombs and just bomb them out?
Edit2: Yes, yes that totally works. I bomb one flank and expand aggressively on the other. Is that intended? I don't know. But it works!
You might have more fun with the Vortex start then. As I recall you get some more time to capture a few settlements and build up before you start hitting really tough opponents, and you tend to have positive relations with the nearby Vampire Coast for early trade. Or just turn the difficulty down, perhaps. You can always turn it back up later.
Skyre needs to move fast and get a foothold in the area next to themself. And also make sure you get access to the next level ranged units.
In open combat it doesn’t really matter how many stacks of Halberdiers and Greatswords they have when you’ve got a line of flamethrowers and infinite ammo ratling gunners to back them up.
Your weakness is siege, (so don’t unless you cheese), but drawing enemies out and ambushing them with machine gun fire? Yea that is how you win
the AI affords those stacks by putting the cheapest units possible in them. it's very common to see something like a one settlement ai with 2 stacks of nothing but goblins. clan mors probably has the easiest start of the skaven, you have plenty of time to kill the dwarfs to the south and take their gold before kroq gar shows up.
Yeah the AI doesn't really economically cheat unless you're playing on a campaign difficulty above Normal. Skyre is up against factions that have more money than them early on and a better early game economy, so they'll be able to field some more stuff early on, but it's just based on the provinces Tilea holds and the cost/upkeep of their units.
I'm honestly not sure why they got rid of the "faction difficulty ratings" when you start a new game, but Skyre on ME used to be listed as Hard because of the early game economic setup (the Vortex start is easier). Once you can bust through Tilea you're rolling though.
Fiatil on
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
IMO Ikit Claw has one of the best starts on Mortal Empires.
There's actually a nifty little trick you can pull off to get Skavenblight up to T5 on turn 2 or 3. You recruit an army of slingers than abandon Skavenblight. Recruit eave a second lord behind outside of Skavenblight. You set up for an ambush in the swamps between you and Miragliano. Tiela will send over an army at the end turn and spring your ambush. Ikit should be capable of taking on most of their army himself but your slingers will really help. Get the enemy to blob up around Iket and let go wit the slings. Wipe out as many as you can and turn them into food. The army should fall back to within range of Miragliano. Next turn attack the army outside of that city but this time you don't want it to be an ambush. You want to pull in the city garrison. Turn what's left of their armies into food. Finally you sack Miragliano. That should give you just enough food to colonize Skavenblight at T5. You can get more slingers and start sackng Tobaro with your second army while you build up the new T5 Skavenblight.
the AI affords those stacks by putting the cheapest units possible in them. it's very common to see something like a one settlement ai with 2 stacks of nothing but goblins. clan mors probably has the easiest start of the skaven, you have plenty of time to kill the dwarfs to the south and take their gold before kroq gar shows up.
I'm playing on Very Hard, but most starts have been manageable and my previous hell with Drycha felt like it was inherently my fault.
Normally the advice here totally works though! Use ambushes to get enemy armies to fall into hordes of guns etc, but what I've found is that the AI was basically just sitting with two stacks on every city doing nothing. Just sitting there eternally. You can imagine when you can only afford one army on very hard that this gets *super* frustrating, because fighting opponents is the single best way of making money on this difficulty and perpetual war is basically required to keep your economy building. There was a solution though! Sit outside of the edge of both armies movement range. The AI always marched one army up and the second army to attack, then retreat from the attacking army. Once the attacking army retreats the AI - due to marching - leaves the other behind. So you can jump and kill one army, then repeat this process to grind them down - hoping it never goes wrong*.
I also stopped using all the fun Skryre toys, because you can't get them fast enough to stop the AI just building into stacks of shit that are impossible to dislodge (Handgunners and Halberdiers basically). Instead I went a boring route of massing slingers with some warpfire throwers and a ratling gun or so. This worked really well because the slingers can easily move and shoot. I got super frustrated with my failure to realize I needed to manually turn off things like skirmish mode, which is death to weapons teams being effective as they have short ranges to a lot of enemies will cause them to fuck around doing nothing instead of shooting.
After restarting the third time, I rapidly mobbed Estalia off the map with the above, taking their capital on turn 10 (!!) and then taking the province by turn 14. Then I went and inflicted brutal revenge on the Tileans - I didn't even take their settlements. I simply razed everything to the ground.
Then 8 AIs declared war on me in one turn, including Bretonnia and so I've been murdering the fey enchantress repeatedly until finally wiping them off the map on turn 40. I'm still unable to actually field any of the fun things that this faction has entire sub systems built around, but stacks of gutter runners and clanrats with shields are getting the job done really effectively
*It totally did at one point but I will still able to kill both armies with my horde of gutter runners and clanrats. Gutter Runners are just too good.
kroq gar and tyrion's mortal empire starts are so easy I really don't think you can fail on them.
on the other side morathi's start has always been a ballbuster, and thorgrim can be really hard too since greenskin AI is strong right now. teclis has only gotten harder too with even more lords in his area. I've heard clostra's is a really bad spot to stat in too, I played her in vortex and the path they put you on makes no sense.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
I'll give the basic advice I always do for Ikit Claw starts on VH/L:
Your first objective is to take Tobaro immediately, settling it at t3. Immediately make the building that gives you Plagueclaw catapults, and watch your cash so that you can instantly recruit 3, possibly 4. At this point, what you do depends on Tilea's behaviour. If they stick in the capital, you're going to have to farm rebellions for a couple of turns. If they get into a fight with either Sartosa or the nearby Greenskins, they will likely stop camping the capital city and you can easily take it with the catapults. If they still haven't left, you can either focus on the other humans to your west, or do the standard ambush stance Ikit army + recruit a Lord and leave it right beside Ikit trick to bait Tilea out of Miragliano. Because Skavenslaves are so cheap, you can often fill the bait Lord's army with them too to lower casualties for your main army, making taking the city a little bit easier afterwards too.
Also, for hard starts, my vote is always going to be Skrolk. I actually think Skarsnik is far easier nowadays, compared to Skrolk who starts right beside Gor-rok, who just fills his army with Saurus from t1 and then sends wave after wave of genetically modified dinosaurs at you on his unlimited AI gold as you struggle, at best, to hold them off with a Skaven gunline. I actually think they need to do a map edit to put a mountain range between the two of them, so that Skrolk can hop over to sack a city but Gor-rok has to take the long way around, it's so bad.
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited May 2021
I got Tobaro at level 3 immediately, but didn't think to put Plagueclaw building in there! That would have been a much smarter start. I think I'll be going with Kroq-Gar next after I am done with this. The situation is pretty stable and one underway easily gets me back to Skavenblight when I need to defend it from the ghost dwarves who hang out next to me. The gutter runner armies I made have been super efficient, but maybe it's time to replace one of the 10+ clanrats with plagueclaw catapults.
In fairness my first three campaigns of Total War II have been Morathi, Drycha and now Ikit. So I've been punched in the balls from the very start of playing the game. Morathi was brutal to begin with, but then got hilariously easy once I got rolling. But never forget the terrible 150+ turns spent in the jungles of Lustria. I may have picked those two other starts because they weren't anywhere near Lizardmen, but this is the first campaign where I've seen the AI just camp its capital with two armies and just *never* leaves until the second you move away.
Edit: Also that trick of bating enemies in cities with a smaller army is quite clever. I was accidentally doing that with my second lord once his army of skaven slaves was initially ready.
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
FWIW, Gutter Runners aren't really where the focus should be with Ikit (though obviously they're not terrible). His workshop and the absurd buffs it gives to e.g. Ratling Gunners and the Poison Wind Globadiers (if you have them) means they become utterly absurd. Ikit is basically the master of Dakka and other war crimes. Deathmaster Snitkch (Clan Eshin) is the one who really loves the Runners.
Another general tip for Skaven is that Plague Priests with the Vermintide spell are exceptionally good, and can summon a totally expendable frontline to tie up enemies while you pepper them with depleted Warpstone.
kroq gar and tyrion's mortal empire starts are so easy I really don't think you can fail on them.
on the other side morathi's start has always been a ballbuster, and thorgrim can be really hard too since greenskin AI is strong right now. teclis has only gotten harder too with even more lords in his area. I've heard clostra's is a really bad spot to stat in too, I played her in vortex and the path they put you on makes no sense.
I haven't played Tyrion in ME, but in the Vortex once you consolidated Ulthuan you can run into trouble expanding cause your supply lines are really stretched by having to sail over water.
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Those poison wind mortars? I only have 1 in my army. Should I replace one of my 4 catapults with another?
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Enough to make holes in walls if I have to, and to make armies want to march toward me. But it’s the jezzails and the mortars that do the heavy lifting and the gatlings to dispatch anything that made it through the long range withering hail of death.
thing is, the explosion puts a damage dot on the whole unit it strikes. It is actually one of the more obnoxiously powerful units in the whole game. I think 2 mortars is more than enough to clear some walls for your rats.
As skyre I do one of two strategies depending on the state of the game.
Early game I just mob the front line with slaves, use the weapons teams to clear flanks, and have the catapults focus on the mob in the front. You can wedge your way through into a siege this way as well. get a unit of rats on the other side of the gate, watch as the AI mobs it with everything it has on the ground, then use magic/mortars/artillery to destroy the blob.
Late game I switch out some slaves with doomwheels/doom cycles, switch out catapults for cannons.
How does the game decide what campaign difficulty it goes with?
1 is probably enough, but if you have the workshop upgrade that lets them wither I can see the appeal.
I think the real secret to sieges is to have Plague priests in the army. An overcast Plague will annihilate blocks, especially if you can get a few to stack up with a Menace Below.
Don't sleep on Plague priests. They are a very strong unit. Their summons have been nerfed a few times but they're still busted. Fire, Life, Vamps and Plague are my top 4 lores.
there are two different difficulty settings, if he picked hard it might be only for the actual a battles
the AI is always massing stacks of crappy units, so that's pretty normal
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
If you traverse from land to water or vice versa without using a port, then the next turn you will have 50% move available.
Really looking forward to delving into it as the original Rome was my entry to the Total War series.
I would feel bad about using it except the AI frequently uses it against you; bringing in much more powerful allies when you're just about to defeat them to trap you in a war that only ends once you've killed your enemy and their friends, and their friend's friends, and their friend's friend's friends...
I do wish this game let me "paint" my armies the colors I want though.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The reduced growth is real annoying though. I just got a few Tier 5 cities around Turn 90 or so, but they're all by my starting province so useless for timely recruiting. I finally paid off Tyrion to join me a couple turns ago and Lothern was still only Tier 4. I'd have waited a bit longer but it was under siege by vampirates and likely to fall.
I definitely prefer Imrik's Vortex position. You start working with the other HEs in a much more timely manner. ME feels too bifurcated, since you've got your confederated Caledor trying to rope in all the other HE LLs before they get wiped out or picked up by Tyrion, and then half a world away you have Imrik stomping Greenskins. Letting Imrik trade from the ports near him would go a long way to making his ME campaign more tolerable though. By the time you can actually trade overseas, you're practically guaranteed to be so powerful everyone hates you.
All that said, Imrik is such a beast in combat. I love watching him 3 shot enemy LLs. That alone is enough to make his campaign worth playing.
I feel like they would have been a lot better either putting the effort into a medeival 2 remaster or doing an updated version of Rome 2.
There's probably an interesting story in how it came to be, as it does seem so random.
It could be something as simple as wanting to see how people respond to some of the older mechanics, like how population used to be a numeric value that reduced when you trained troops. The $30 price point leads me to view the release the same way they do the Total War Saga releases as a way to test mechanics out in the wild. And this was probably cheaper and quicker since the base of the original Rome was already there.
That factor alone was enough to make me refund it.. shame.
Both AIs next to me have just sat on their capitals with two entirely full stacks of armies + garrison doing nothing. When I walk towards one the other just comes with both stacks and razes my capital. If I sit here and do nothing I just get absolutely nowhere except clicking "End turn" a lot.
Really fucking hate how the AI can maintain massive armies with no penalty. How can you be maintaining two full stacks on one or two settlements?
The AI in the game is bullshit though. They can basically ignore economy entirely and have perfect intel. I get that AI needs to cheat to be a challenge, but it can get frustrating when the cheating is blatant.
Edit: I am really trying to enjoy this, but it's really draining the fun to see the AI just camp every settlement with 2+ armies and not give a fuck about the fact they can't possibly afford that many units. Is there a start for skaven that is actually fun and has more than two grindy and immensely obnoxious options as the only places to go? Also just as soon as I got my second province attacking Estalia, Tilea declared war, rolled in with 3+ stacks of greatswords, mortars and halberdies backed by handgunners and just mowed everything down. What is the normal way to actually do this? Just sit there and hope the AI is dumb enough to not notice undercities with bombs and just bomb them out?
Edit2: Yes, yes that totally works. I bomb one flank and expand aggressively on the other. Is that intended? I don't know. But it works!
Nah, using undercity bombs for early conquests is way too slow. I tend to beat Tilea and Estalia using ambushes, either by baiting outside their capitols or by taking their minor settlements and waiting for them to send armies to take them back. It's certainly not easy though.
You might have more fun with the Vortex start then. As I recall you get some more time to capture a few settlements and build up before you start hitting really tough opponents, and you tend to have positive relations with the nearby Vampire Coast for early trade. Or just turn the difficulty down, perhaps. You can always turn it back up later.
In open combat it doesn’t really matter how many stacks of Halberdiers and Greatswords they have when you’ve got a line of flamethrowers and infinite ammo ratling gunners to back them up.
Your weakness is siege, (so don’t unless you cheese), but drawing enemies out and ambushing them with machine gun fire? Yea that is how you win
I'm honestly not sure why they got rid of the "faction difficulty ratings" when you start a new game, but Skyre on ME used to be listed as Hard because of the early game economic setup (the Vortex start is easier). Once you can bust through Tilea you're rolling though.
There's actually a nifty little trick you can pull off to get Skavenblight up to T5 on turn 2 or 3. You recruit an army of slingers than abandon Skavenblight. Recruit eave a second lord behind outside of Skavenblight. You set up for an ambush in the swamps between you and Miragliano. Tiela will send over an army at the end turn and spring your ambush. Ikit should be capable of taking on most of their army himself but your slingers will really help. Get the enemy to blob up around Iket and let go wit the slings. Wipe out as many as you can and turn them into food. The army should fall back to within range of Miragliano. Next turn attack the army outside of that city but this time you don't want it to be an ambush. You want to pull in the city garrison. Turn what's left of their armies into food. Finally you sack Miragliano. That should give you just enough food to colonize Skavenblight at T5. You can get more slingers and start sackng Tobaro with your second army while you build up the new T5 Skavenblight.
I'm playing on Very Hard, but most starts have been manageable and my previous hell with Drycha felt like it was inherently my fault.
Normally the advice here totally works though! Use ambushes to get enemy armies to fall into hordes of guns etc, but what I've found is that the AI was basically just sitting with two stacks on every city doing nothing. Just sitting there eternally. You can imagine when you can only afford one army on very hard that this gets *super* frustrating, because fighting opponents is the single best way of making money on this difficulty and perpetual war is basically required to keep your economy building. There was a solution though! Sit outside of the edge of both armies movement range. The AI always marched one army up and the second army to attack, then retreat from the attacking army. Once the attacking army retreats the AI - due to marching - leaves the other behind. So you can jump and kill one army, then repeat this process to grind them down - hoping it never goes wrong*.
I also stopped using all the fun Skryre toys, because you can't get them fast enough to stop the AI just building into stacks of shit that are impossible to dislodge (Handgunners and Halberdiers basically). Instead I went a boring route of massing slingers with some warpfire throwers and a ratling gun or so. This worked really well because the slingers can easily move and shoot. I got super frustrated with my failure to realize I needed to manually turn off things like skirmish mode, which is death to weapons teams being effective as they have short ranges to a lot of enemies will cause them to fuck around doing nothing instead of shooting.
After restarting the third time, I rapidly mobbed Estalia off the map with the above, taking their capital on turn 10 (!!) and then taking the province by turn 14. Then I went and inflicted brutal revenge on the Tileans - I didn't even take their settlements. I simply razed everything to the ground.
Then 8 AIs declared war on me in one turn, including Bretonnia and so I've been murdering the fey enchantress repeatedly until finally wiping them off the map on turn 40. I'm still unable to actually field any of the fun things that this faction has entire sub systems built around, but stacks of gutter runners and clanrats with shields are getting the job done really effectively
*It totally did at one point but I will still able to kill both armies with my horde of gutter runners and clanrats. Gutter Runners are just too good.
on the other side morathi's start has always been a ballbuster, and thorgrim can be really hard too since greenskin AI is strong right now. teclis has only gotten harder too with even more lords in his area. I've heard clostra's is a really bad spot to stat in too, I played her in vortex and the path they put you on makes no sense.
Your first objective is to take Tobaro immediately, settling it at t3. Immediately make the building that gives you Plagueclaw catapults, and watch your cash so that you can instantly recruit 3, possibly 4. At this point, what you do depends on Tilea's behaviour. If they stick in the capital, you're going to have to farm rebellions for a couple of turns. If they get into a fight with either Sartosa or the nearby Greenskins, they will likely stop camping the capital city and you can easily take it with the catapults. If they still haven't left, you can either focus on the other humans to your west, or do the standard ambush stance Ikit army + recruit a Lord and leave it right beside Ikit trick to bait Tilea out of Miragliano. Because Skavenslaves are so cheap, you can often fill the bait Lord's army with them too to lower casualties for your main army, making taking the city a little bit easier afterwards too.
Also, for hard starts, my vote is always going to be Skrolk. I actually think Skarsnik is far easier nowadays, compared to Skrolk who starts right beside Gor-rok, who just fills his army with Saurus from t1 and then sends wave after wave of genetically modified dinosaurs at you on his unlimited AI gold as you struggle, at best, to hold them off with a Skaven gunline. I actually think they need to do a map edit to put a mountain range between the two of them, so that Skrolk can hop over to sack a city but Gor-rok has to take the long way around, it's so bad.
In fairness my first three campaigns of Total War II have been Morathi, Drycha and now Ikit. So I've been punched in the balls from the very start of playing the game. Morathi was brutal to begin with, but then got hilariously easy once I got rolling. But never forget the terrible 150+ turns spent in the jungles of Lustria. I may have picked those two other starts because they weren't anywhere near Lizardmen, but this is the first campaign where I've seen the AI just camp its capital with two armies and just *never* leaves until the second you move away.
Edit: Also that trick of bating enemies in cities with a smaller army is quite clever. I was accidentally doing that with my second lord once his army of skaven slaves was initially ready.
Another general tip for Skaven is that Plague Priests with the Vermintide spell are exceptionally good, and can summon a totally expendable frontline to tie up enemies while you pepper them with depleted Warpstone.
I haven't played Tyrion in ME, but in the Vortex once you consolidated Ulthuan you can run into trouble expanding cause your supply lines are really stretched by having to sail over water.
At least mine were.