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[umiman]

So it is best to exterminate Varg & Skaelings, but awaken & subjugate the others. Do the vassals turn against you in the birdy bird event, tho? So is it just wasted effort till then?

The vassalized awakened tribes are basically your loyal dogs.

If you play on legendary, I recommend you get as many awakened tribes as you can as each of them cheatspawns stacks. So the more awakened you get, the more cheatspawns you get.

Also I found giving your vassalized awakened tribes targets is really bad for their AI as it gets them all fucky and lost. But if I leave them alone, they'll usually do useful things like reclaim razed land and attack enemies.

You have plenty of time to conquer all of Norsca. No need to feel particularly rushed to do it. Birdman usually spawns around turn 105 or thereabouts so if you get to turn 100, start making sure you have a full stack of prepared units. I also think that the amount of stacks Birdman spawns with is determined by how many stacks you yourself have. Whenever I only have one single army, Birdman only has one as well.

[Mech#4]

Yah, the Lord of Change spawns with as many armies as you have. Sometimes I've kept my armies to only one to make them easier. Other times I've been o the other side of the map and let the chaos stacks charge through enemy territory, getting either destroyed or split up.


I did spend one game vassalizing all the norscan tribes. Though I think that ended up with them declaring war on each other and forcing me to pick sides, inevitably annoying all of them as I lost diplomatic reliability. I think now it's best to stick with only one of the tribes and flatten the others as it saves hassel later on.


Giving orders to enemy armies I've found rather unreliable. Chances are, if I'm sieging a city and an ally has an army nearby and I ask them to attack the city as well, they won't help.
I don't know. The're not as obedient as Waaagh! armies, maybe I should wait until I get that message about "Your ally plans to attack X target within the next few turns".

[umiman]

So the countdown teaser for Warhammer 2 is on the website. But we all knew it was coming anyway right? The real trailer will come out next Friday.

---

My chaos campaign is currently stuck against the dwarfs. We can't make headway into each other. Every time we butt heads, we lose so many men.

It's not really because I can't defeat them in battle. It's because I don't have any good ways to deal with the bleeding Gyrocopters.

Not to mention Kholek is kinda busy burning down Athel Loren. Turns out an army of just dragon ogres is amazing at killing elves.

[Retropunch]

So the countdown teaser for Warhammer 2 is on the website. But we all knew it was coming anyway right? The real trailer will come out next Friday.

It kinda just seems...way too soon.

I just can't imagine it'll be any different mechanics/engine wise - It'll just be basically a big DLC pack of a different area. To be honest though, I don't know what you can expect from Sega's money grabbing-ness.

[Teneb]

I just hope the Tomb Kings are in it. They are my favorite faction.

[Tack]

It is (afaik) absolutely going to be Ulthuan, Naggaroth and possibly lustria.
I daresay Khemri will be added along with the Chaos wastes and Maw, along with the Chaos dwarves and Ogre kingdoms.

Cynical speculation aside, I'm keen for skaven.

It kinda just seems...way too soon.

I just can't imagine it'll be any different mechanics/engine wise - It'll just be basically a big DLC pack of a different area. To be honest though, I don't know what you can expect from Sega's money grabbing-ness.

I seem to have planted myself as resident CA fanboy, so I'll blindly defend them real quick.

1. They've said they have two teams, one making "main games", and the other making "DLC". The 'Warhammer 2' team started work immediately after the release of number 1. Granted, it's only been a year, but at this point they just need to make races. (And maybe ship combat??)
2. They started with the intention that the sequels would "bolt on" to eachother. Which means that they can't change the engine too much without reneging on that promise.
3. They did engine-copying previously with Rome-Attila.... which is shit.
4. Engines are expensive yo.

But yes, I'd treat it as an expansion. A big big expansion.

[umiman]

They've been using the same engine since Shogun 2.

[Shadowlord]

Stellaris came out the same month as Total Warhammer; Can you imagine if Paradox were to announce Stellaris 2 at this point?

[umiman]

Stellaris came out the same month as Total Warhammer; Can you imagine if Paradox were to announce Stellaris 2 at this point?

I can understand your disbelief but don't forget this is SEGA. They're mega DLC whores.

Not to mention this was ALWAYS in the plan. Even before Warhammer 1 came out they already said this would be a three-part series.

Part 1 was Old World.

Part 2 is New World.

Part 3 is Chaos (and expansion of the Old World map to the East and South).

It's why I tell people if you want to wait for the super mega complete version, then it'll take three years and about $300 worth of DLC by the end.

[Tack]

They've been using the same engine since Shogun 2.

Shogun 2 didn't even have real walls though.

Is that why Rome 2's formations were so lacking?
Defensive Testudo sucked balls.

Three years and about $300 worth of DLC by the end.

Is it sad that this is fast and cheap compared to the actual hobby?

[Teneb]

Defensive Testudo sucked balls.

I like it. It is excellent against missile-heavy armies. Just pop it and wait until they run out of ammo.

[umiman]

The "new" engine sacrificed a lot of things for beauty and individual sync kills compared to what Rome and Medieval 2 used.

Off the top of my head, units lost a lot of intrinsic mass.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Units in Rome and Medieval could actually push other units around as they fought. For example, in Medieval 2, a unit with more mass like say heavy infantry, could push aside a unit of light infantry. If you dogpiled a hundred units against a single unit at a gate for example, you could just smash through the entire formation with mass alone.

This doesn't really happen any more, though they've added some level of battlefield mass with Warhammer. Now you can hold a gate with like a single formation of spearmen until they all die or there's not enough to cover the entire gap.

Additionally, in the past if you had a really strong infantry center, you could push through and deform the enemy formation or even just break through because all your units "pushed" their way through. Now your formations basically stay the same when you engage until someone routs or dies.

The older engines were also way better suited at large scale combat, partially due to how it was just older with poorer graphics in general, but also because it didn't have the big focus on sync kills like they have now. This had another effect which the modern Total Wars don't really have (with the exception of Warhammer, where they fumbled it back in).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In Shogun 2, there was a huge and historically accurate emphasis on one on one combat. It's why in Shogun 2, the entire battlefield devolves into duels between everyone and only one person can attack another at a time.

They maintained this for some reason into Rome 2 and it sucked so much there. After all, in Shogun 2, everyone still only had 1hp so all it took was one hit and people would die. Rome 2 was when they added the HP system and where you end up with MMO-style combat between units that still happens in Warhammer. Not to mention the animations in general were worse there than Shogun.

Nowadays there's some degree of multiple units attacking each other and AOE damage, which is one of the reasons why the game runs better now as they abandoned the sync kill thing for most units.

There's also things like how now units rotate on their axis instead of turning like a normal creature (look at Skarsnik for an example, he rotates with Gobbla 360 degrees) or how units slide around on the battlefield sometimes like they're all standing on flying carpets.

I actually recommend you DON'T look up examples or differences between the engines because once you see all the problems with the new one, you can't help but notice them all the time after that.

I should point out I did make one mistake earlier. They didn't introduce the new engine with Shogun 2. They introduced it with Empire. It's called the Warscape Engine.

[Teneb]

-snip-

Besides all that, there is one thing that was critical in the old total wars that no longer exists: if you walk a unit through another in the newer games, they get tangled up. If you do it in Rome or Medieval 2, the soldiers in the stationary unit will actually open little "hallways" so their comrades can go through.

[umiman]

-snip-

Besides all that, there is one thing that was critical in the old total wars that no longer exists: if you walk a unit through another in the newer games, they get tangled up. If you do it in Rome or Medieval 2, the soldiers in the stationary unit will actually open little "hallways" so their comrades can go through.

Heh, the best part was that not all units would do this.

Only the trained ones. It was amazing.

All that being said, I don't really mind this engine all so much though I would like it if they got something better for the next historical game. My main issue with this engine is that the unit counts are so tiny. Trying to get a 10,000 men battle in Warscape requires a supercomputer made from the fires of Mt. Doom. You can do 20,000 men battles in Medieval 2 no problem at all. Even in 2010 I remember doing crazy massive battles in it.

If they really go to China, they HAVE to get battles larger than what they do now.

[Majestic7]

I have to say I've never used first person view in Total War despite it having been introduced a few versions ago. I don't usually ever zoom close enough to see individual combat either, I want to keep an eye on formations and where units are. I suppose I'm missing something considering my righ is pretty good and I run the game smooth on high details, but still. I'd rather have good force dynamics than beautiful duels I won't be watching anyway.

I really miss the differences between formation-based trained units and mobs from older games. That corridor-system and the way troops pushed each other. Formation troops always sliced through mob-troops etc due to units mass and coherence. It was an excellent way to portray difference between warriors and soldiers without giving large differences in stats. Would still be a nice way to differentiate, say, orcs and Imperials or peasant levies and professional footmen.