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[catoblepas]

The health system in Warhammer has some effects on ranged from what I've seen. With crossbows firing on zombies it takes about 3 volleys before any of the zombies start dying. The bolts are doing damage but the unit health has to deplete a bit before it starts losing units. 6480 / 120 I think means each zombie has 54 hitpoints.

Yes, I have noticed that as well. Some RTS games have the number of soldiers in a squad tied to the overall health of a unit (I think the LoTR RTS used this system) where as the overall unit health decreases, individual soldiers die off. Other games give the individual soldiers in a unit separate hp. The later is the system the older Total War games used. IMO it's a bit disconcerting considering seeing them move to a more 'arcade-y' system with a shared healthpool considering the older mechanics for health and determining casualties was much closer to Warhammer's tabletop rules.

I have been watching some let's plays and I have noticed a lot of little things like this, that while not significant individually, seem to add up to quite a substantial amount of cut features/streamlining when compared to older titles. What I have seen so far is very disappointing to me.

On the plus side at least, with the popularity of the game, perhaps GW will give more thought to bringing back some of the old Warhammer world in some form or another.

[umiman]

The health system in Warhammer has some effects on ranged from what I've seen. With crossbows firing on zombies it takes about 3 volleys before any of the zombies start dying. The bolts are doing damage but the unit health has to deplete a bit before it starts losing units. 6480 / 120 I think means each zombie has 54 hitpoints.

Yes, I have noticed that as well. Some RTS games have the number of soldiers in a squad tied to the overall health of a unit (I think the LoTR RTS used this system) where as the overall unit health decreases, individual soldiers die off. Other games give the individual soldiers in a unit separate hp. The later is the system the older Total War games used. IMO it's a bit disconcerting considering seeing them move to a more 'arcade-y' system with a shared healthpool considering the older mechanics for health and determining casualties was much closer to Warhammer's tabletop rules.

They don't use a shared hp pool. Each unit has their own hp.

It's why you can get things like a unit of demigryphs at 1/2 health but have all their members up (this is what happens when you cast Fate of Bjuna on them). Also if you use the Vampire healing spell, it will heal hp of injured units first before reviving dead ones.

[Cthulhu]

After thinking about it for a while I've decided I like the way dorps and umies do diplomacy with orcs.  At first it didn't make sense, but they usually do it when you're stronger than them and they always sweeten the deals with lots of gold

It's not as much diplomacy as bribing, trying to buy safety, but like they said in Battlefleet Gothic, bribing orcs doesn't work.  The Tileans have given me thousands of gold in exchange for peace treaties, and I'm heading out now to show them what all their money bought me.

[umiman]

After thinking about it for a while I've decided I like the way dorps and umies do diplomacy with orcs.  At first it didn't make sense, but they usually do it when you're stronger than them and they always sweeten the deals with lots of gold

It's not as much diplomacy as bribing, trying to buy safety, but like they said in Battlefleet Gothic, bribing orcs doesn't work.  The Tileans have given me thousands of gold in exchange for peace treaties, and I'm heading out now to show them what all their money bought me.

By the way, if you're playing as a human or a dwarf and an ork / goblin offers your money for vassalization... don't accept.

They break it the first chance they get, the motherfuckers.

[Mech#4]

On healing undead units with Invocation of Nehek, I've found I have to usually cast it twice on the same unit. Once to heal up the individual units and again to actually start gaining units back. Casting it on graveguard has gained back maybe about 12 while casting it on vargheists brought back around 3. I'd say bringing back 3 vargheists is more useful than 12 graveguard. Though, I've also seen that flying units die off really quickly.
It's not really useful to cast it on units in melee with the purpose of increasing the size of the unit (like it's used in the tabletop) since the health gained is diminished by the damage being taken.

[catoblepas]

The health system in Warhammer has some effects on ranged from what I've seen. With crossbows firing on zombies it takes about 3 volleys before any of the zombies start dying. The bolts are doing damage but the unit health has to deplete a bit before it starts losing units. 6480 / 120 I think means each zombie has 54 hitpoints.

Yes, I have noticed that as well. Some RTS games have the number of soldiers in a squad tied to the overall health of a unit (I think the LoTR RTS used this system) where as the overall unit health decreases, individual soldiers die off. Other games give the individual soldiers in a unit separate hp. The later is the system the older Total War games used. IMO it's a bit disconcerting considering seeing them move to a more 'arcade-y' system with a shared healthpool considering the older mechanics for health and determining casualties was much closer to Warhammer's tabletop rules.

They don't use a shared hp pool. Each unit has their own hp.

It's why you can get things like a unit of demigryphs at 1/2 health but have all their members up (this is what happens when you cast Fate of Bjuna on them). Also if you use the Vampire healing spell, it will heal hp of injured units first before reviving dead ones.

That is great news and a huge relief. Although the huge HP bloat I have seen on a lot of the unit cards for heroes along with the apparent introduction of a damage stat and armor soaking damage instead of deflecting attacks is still rather disappointing.

The zombies only starting to die off after a more than one volley must be a result of the individual zombies having hp and armor soak in excess of the amount of damage an arrow from Mech#4's ranged units could do, so a single arrow could never statistically kill a zombie in one hit. Still a radical departure from the likes of Rome Total War or M2 Total War, where a single arrow always had a chance of killing a soldier in a single hit-but not what I had feared.

I do hope that they continue to keep shared healthpools out of total war going forward though. That sort of mechanic never really sat well with me.

[Mech#4]

Well, I didn't want to get into all the stats because I have no idea how it would all work. Zombies have 15 base armour, for comparison Skeleton Warriors have 30. Crossbows deal about 21 points of damage. 54 hitpoints would take about 3 shots at 21 damage each but I don't know if or how damage is reduced due to range, angle, having to hit the same target several times, the 15 points of armour and so on.
Skeleton Warriors are better against ranged due to having shields and that giving them a chance to block missiles from the front arc.

Going by tabletop (Again, I only know 7th edition stats, the game is based off 8th), zombies have 2 strength and toughness and no armour. They also gain extra models from Invocation of Nehek due to how easy it is to raise more zombies in lore.

All the damage dealing though I feel is rather secondary to making units rout. Sustained ranged fire is a good way to get units to rout I've found, especially light skirmisher cavalry.

[Cthulhu]

The biggest problem with orcs is the constant rebellions forcing me to keep armies at home when I thought I was finally ready to invade the umie lands.  Just let me get to the fun part of the game, Jesus.  There's no fun or interesting challenge associated with guys constantly rebelling for reasons I can't control

[umiman]

That is great news and a huge relief. Although the huge HP bloat I have seen on a lot of the unit cards for heroes along with the apparent introduction of a damage stat and armor soaking damage instead of deflecting attacks is still rather disappointing.

I'm assuming you're referring to Warhammer Tabletop's wounds system? Because armour and defense has always worked that way since forever in Total War. Melee defense is the probability of blocking a melee attack while armour was how much the damage was reduced unless it was armour piercing.

[Frumple]

Frumple:

1. That legend one was actually the one that broke my camel's back and led to me coming in and asking XD

Was watching the dwarf campaign stuff he's got up... haven't noticed any cheese in what I've watched so far, but he kept doing things that hurt to watch anyway. Cheese doesn't even particularly bother me (I was perfectly okay watching one guy pelt down tier 2+ vampire units with a fireball ring at range while the AI sat, unresponsive), I just don't want to constantly be seeing stuff that can only really be described as glaringly bad decision making. They ain't gotta' be good, just good enough I can't tell they suck. Though... yeah. If he hurt, you may never want to go looking for other ones. Like said, he was the least bad I've seen so far.

2. Ah ha, so there actually was a mechanical reason for that! Good to know for sure; half the reason I was asking was because I couldn't really notice a difference between the two arrangements.

3. Possibly! It had red arrows pointed at the ground instead of a specific unit, whatever it was, and acted like an attack-move command. Lack of a charge would kinda' make sense! I just wish I could say with any certainty any of the people I had watched were actually aware of that.

4. Upkeep'd make sense. Not a single one I've seen actually mentioned it, but it would be a good reason to hold off (or at  least immediately dump the hero, somehow). Still would think the item and the easy XP would be a good reason to hit early even if you did need to ditch the hero, but eh. That, and expensive or not, it'd seem like dumping maybe a squad or three of early chaff infantry or some shit for a unit that has a skill tree would be... smart? I very literally don't know, and also can't check, heh.

Though... speaking of heroes, how good of a thing is it to have 'm loitering around? The time or two someone used one they seemed pretty useful (even if only as a beatstick attached to an army), and there was at least one vid where the guy basically got his shit pushed in by two or three of the things wrecking havoc. Even outside their fancy action stuff, how would one match up to its upkeep worth of early infantry?

E: Ah, and @mach, thanks for the recs. Dunno if I'll check 'em out - I really am looking for ones o'this game, 'cause the vid or two I've seen of Call honestly looked like complete ass and I have less than zero interest in the non-fantasy parts of the franchise -- but thanks none the less!

[catoblepas]

That is great news and a huge relief. Although the huge HP bloat I have seen on a lot of the unit cards for heroes along with the apparent introduction of a damage stat and armor soaking damage instead of deflecting attacks is still rather disappointing.

I'm assuming you're referring to Warhammer Tabletop's wounds system? Because armour and defense has always worked that way since forever in Total War. Melee defense is the probability of blocking a melee attack while armour was how much the damage was reduced unless it was armour piercing.

Not at all

In Rome/Medieval 2 at least, your attack value would be compared to a combined defense value that added your defense skill, shield bonus, and armor bonus (with some additional factors like moral or armor piercing weapons having their say) And that determined how often an attack would make it through the defending units defenses. Armor did Not actually reduce the damage received, just increased the probability that the attack would be defeated by the attacked unit's defense.

Whether or not a soldier actually took damage after the attack beat the defenders defense was actually determined by a 'lethality' stat that determines what proportion of attacks with that weapon will actually chip off a health point.

Only elephants, generals, and a few select elite troops have more than one hit point per soldier in earlier games, so there's almost always the possibility of an attack killing an individual soldier in one hit, no matter how well armored.

[Mech#4]

@Frumble: On your number 3. I think it's the system for attacking in groups. By holding ctrl and g to group units together, or pressing the little lock button on the grouped selection in the unit bar, they maintain formation. If you select the group and click on the enemies army, say a group of swordsmen in the middle of a line of 5, the grouped units will attack the enemy units across from them rather than all charge the single unit you clicked on.

[umiman]

Though... speaking of heroes, how good of a thing is it to have 'm loitering around? The time or two someone used one they seemed pretty useful (even if only as a beatstick attached to an army), and there was at least one vid where the guy basically got his shit pushed in by two or three of the things wrecking havoc. Even outside their fancy action stuff, how would one match up to its upkeep worth of early infantry?

Depends on the hero and what you want to do and if you think it's worth the cost.

A mistake people make initially is buying everything they can afford including all the heroes. You'd just end up bankrupting yourself as the upkeep cost is staggering. I normally just throw them into an army if I want them in one and if there is a situation where I can use them outside the army, then I'll pull them out for awhile. For example, I need to assassinate some asshole Chaos hero spreading corruption or I want to raise public order temporarily or hurry the growth rate or maybe destroy some walls.

They will easily match their upkeep's worth of early infantry. Though in the early stages of the game I'd rather have 3 swordsmen than 1 underlevelled wizard. I can't siege Marienburg with a wizard that only knows one spell. If they gave me a warrior priest or something like that, I'd jump on it.

[Silent_Thunder]

Frumple:

1. I don't really like a lot of Total War lets plays because they hurt my brain like you mentioned. If I do watch any, I like those that are more for humour than seriousness. The Yogscast did a bunch of videos on it, but mostly just multiplayer battles. I don't like Legend of Total War because he just cheeses every battle and acts like he's good or something. Seriously, I beat all the Total Wars on legendary and never needed to cheese to that degree, why exactly does he think he's so great for cheesing every single bleeding battle? So yeah, I never watch them.

2. Archers get an accuracy penalty if they're lobbing shots instead of shooting directly. In this game they nerfed friendly fire a lot though and you really only have to worry about artillery doing friendly fire (which they will, a lot). I don't like using guns because they can't arc over troops and they're not as fearsome as Napoleon or Fall of the Samurai. I like the outriders a lot though, mostly because they're mounted so they actually can shoot over your troops, but they can run around very fast to shoot flanks. They also carry gatling guns.

3. There's no attack move command as far as I know. You're referring to them using the advance, retreat, turn, etc. commands? (movement keys) The downside to using it is your units don't charge targets when they get in range, rather they will just walk or run into them without the charge bonus. Using formation move and those commands are great for minor tweaks to formation or just generally moving in a group when you can't be arsed to reform everything.

4. There are good reasons to put off the initial quest that gives you a hero. The hero costs a lot in upkeep and you have to waste time running there to get what amounts to a pretty silly reward. You also have to waste turns healing the damage back from the quest. For the Empire one I never bother with it until I'm done conquering Reikland and another province.

To clarify, the nerf from FF came in two things primarily. One, getting rid of the frankly amazing awful system Attilla used where for FF purposes your units actually had an expanded hitbox. And 2, units will now refuse to fire if they don't have a decent shot, which when Autofire is on often results in them choosing better targets.

[Mech#4]

I had noticed that ranged units won't fire into melee, a nice change. I think it only does this when you don't specifically tell them to attack a target, as such I don't notice it much with artillery since I tend to pick targets for them.

I was wondering if they'd do something with this because in the tabletop you can't shoot into melee at all. The only unit I know of that can are Skaven poisonwind globadiers who can even throw if they're engaged in melee themselves. There was also things like most ranged units, even mounted skirmishers, could only move or shoot but that might've changed in 8th.

On heroes, I've been using them as extended leadership bubbles staggered down my infantry line. Mostly only 1 or 2 heroes per army. Warrior Priests have a nice area of effect buff on top of looking glorious charging headfirst into battle.