Ok I see what you're saying now. Thanks!
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Total War Warhammer 2 |OT| Of Mice and Ratmen
- Thread starter karnage10
- Start date
Ok I see what you're saying now. Thanks!
WaterAstro
Member
Anyone having issues with the CPU fan?
I'm just on the campaign screen, and my CPU fan goes absolutely bonkers while my CPU temps are pretty low, presumably to keep the CPU heat down? but I'm not sure if it's just going crazy for no reason or if it is actually getting hot.
I just played a High Elf campaign without this issue, now that I'm skaven, it started happening. It's so loud that I feel like the fan is going to break.
I'm just on the campaign screen, and my CPU fan goes absolutely bonkers while my CPU temps are pretty low, presumably to keep the CPU heat down? but I'm not sure if it's just going crazy for no reason or if it is actually getting hot.
I just played a High Elf campaign without this issue, now that I'm skaven, it started happening. It's so loud that I feel like the fan is going to break.
Not even started this...*shakes head* But...
You could download and run HWMonitor in the background. It'll track highest/lowest temps and CPU/GPU load, which'll give you an idea what's going on.
You could download and run HWMonitor in the background. It'll track highest/lowest temps and CPU/GPU load, which'll give you an idea what's going on.
WaterAstro
Member
Actually, it's sounds like it's my GPU...
WaterAstro
Member
It'll give you temps and load for GPU, too.
Yeah, I actually already use HWMonitor. GPU temps aren't going up, yet the fans are spinning faster.
That's... Weird. What's the load on it like?
PeskyToaster
Member
Stormvermin hold the line pretty well. A good anvil while my flamethrowers move around for some enfilade fire. I just got access to some of the tech units like warp cannons and doomwheels so I need to look into fitting those into some of my comps. I also have an older army with a lot of clanrats that need replacing.
it seems that the difficulty level increases unit upkeep by about 20% for every difficulty level, on top of the 15% global income reduction per lord. Did it work like that in TW:W1 too? Together with all the bonus gold the AI gets, that might explain why game 2 feels way more difficult
well, and there's the Elves faction in Lustria that keeps three full stacks with just one settlement
well, and there's the Elves faction in Lustria that keeps three full stacks with just one settlement
WaterAstro
Member
umm 1000 MHz at peak? The temperatures don't seem different, yet the fan goes insane.
I think the difference is that my High Elf playthrough, I just stuck to the island, and the Skaven playthrough, I was all over the map, attacking everything.
Edit: It feels like a guaranteed win if you just stick to one quarter of the map. You'll get those rune things faster than anyone if you own the entire quarter map than the other factions that just have a few rune thing generations.
Started up my first game last night. Went with Tyrion because he seems like the newbie LL and I've only played like 30 hours of TW ever. Still super early (just eliminated the Cult of Excess) but I already really enjoy the amount of pure elf fuckery that's going on. Arrows everywhere, phoenixes roaming the skies, infantry looking regal as hell. They definitely nailed the aesthetic I would envision from the trace amount I know about High Elves.
Pyros_Eien
Member
It's pretty funny how it works though, as Skaven this would have been an easy win against so few lizards, probably lose a few hundred of slaves at most.
Sändersson
Member
Its propably your gpu and I think I might have the same problem (on campaign map especially.) So for some ungodly reason this game is veeeeeery demanding on the gpu and atleast my 1080 sits at 100% all the time. Now I have made hour long runs on different benchmark softwares (firestrike and valley for example) and for some reason they dont seem to push out nearly as much heat at this game, even though the gpu usage sits at 100% also.
I dont get this or how this is even possible, but total war warhammer 2 is the only game/app that makes my gpu fans speed up to 70% (my custom fan curve.)
Man the end game Dark elves are BRUTAL if you let them confederate the whole starting continent. I was able to convince pretty much the whole world to start a fight with them and my god they are not willing to give up without a fight. xD
WaterAstro
Member
Sändersson;250961531 said:
Yeah, it was 100% load for me, but the thing is that I played a High Elf playthrough without this issue. Something is wrong with the campaign map when you discover and take over a lot of cities.
Played both Tyrion and Teclis on very hard into their mid-games and I really like the high elves but don't like how much you have to fight other high elves as tyrion. I think I'm going to give up on the campaign and move onto a legendary Lizardmen campaign, hopefully they're as interesting as the high elves have been.
I have finished the campaign with kroc-gar. Really like the campaign. For those wondering what happens when someone ends the final ritual you get a final chance to stop it so it don't expect a game-over out of nowhere.
spoilers for end-game battles
Started a co-op campaign of skaven with my GF, wish us luck!
spoilers for end-game battles
The last battle is so easy that it is a bit sad. The vortex spells are way too powerful, they can wipe half of a unit with one shot. I really like the skybox of the final battle, the great horned rat looks so impressive.
The fact that whenever the enemy ends the ritual you get an "easy" battle it allows you to game the system a bit. I hope CA makes these battles harder if you try to game it, for example lets say dark elves finish the last ritual, you fight the battle and win. If the dark elves complete the ritual again that battle should be harder.
The fact that whenever the enemy ends the ritual you get an "easy" battle it allows you to game the system a bit. I hope CA makes these battles harder if you try to game it, for example lets say dark elves finish the last ritual, you fight the battle and win. If the dark elves complete the ritual again that battle should be harder.
Started a co-op campaign of skaven with my GF, wish us luck!
Pyros_Eien
Member
I started a Tyrion campaign and while I did start with fighting some high elves, it stopped pretty quick. Mostly I picked up the guys to my right and fought them because the one faction that was friendly with me was at war with them, and after they got deleted from the map(mostly from my ally, I actually messed up a fight and ended up losing my entire army, had to wait 4turns for Tyrion to respawn and no more phoenix/bolt thrower). After that though it's been mostly fighting pirates, skaeling and dark elves, everyone else was either friendly or a bit below neutral, I used influence to get them back to positive to start trading with them but because I lost all my army and stuff I ended up with only the 2 starting provinces(the asuryan shrine one and the starting one), which is nothing so I couldn't go to war with anyone, and I mostly just ran around with helping the guy I was allied with and feeding him gold and influence. After many turns of this and him stealing my settlements after I was done fighting the armies, I managed to confederate and now own half of Ulthuan and have military alliance with the other half.
Going pretty good, other than one of the gates having fallen to a dark elf faction and it's like stupidly hard to retake it(garrison is like a super high level stack, a 10k army or so and high elves don't have assault garrison heroes) and some rogue army was apparently hidden somewhere next to my base and after 30turns of building up an army, came out and destroyed my lvl 4 soon to be lvl 5 city with a 12dragons+dryads army. Took me 4turns to kill it, that was total bullshit.
Oh and I'm super late on rituals again, don't even have ressource generating settlements, it sucks, meanwhile Malekit is already near the 3rd ritual because of them VH cheats.
Melhisedek
Member
Guys I never played a Total War game before and this looks might interesting. Am used to Starcraft and Warcraft types of RTS but nothing like this.
Any tips for a newcomer? Are there any video tutorials or anything as it seems pretty complex
Any tips for a newcomer? Are there any video tutorials or anything as it seems pretty complex
PeskyToaster
Member
The way I describe it is Total War is like Civilization except you actually get to fight the battles. The battles will be much like you're used to in any RTS except instead of 1 or 5 guys per units you have much more. Still they operate the same. You select them with left click and you attack with right click. If you've played Civ and always wanted to watch an army you've built actually take the field then you'll love Total War. No other strategies scratch that itch. Paradox games are more complex and nuanced in their grand strategy but, still, seeing you have 2000 man army is nothing compared to SEEING your 2000 man army take the field in all its glory. Even more so when it's fuckin dragons or rat monks or repugnant hell spawn. It's awesome. Anyone who has never played a Total War should try it out. I don't think any other games have the same combination of RTS and Grand Strategy that CA has created. That's why I've been playing every single one since I was like 10.
If you're on the fence about buying the Total War youtube has a bunch of Let's Play videos. If you're already IN then the in-game advisor is pretty helpful and you can always ask in this thread. It's not paradox levels of complicated and the introduction battles with introduce most of the basic concepts in a structured way.
I wanna do a co-op campaign so bad but my friends aren't total war fans. I've been planting the seeds though. I started naming units (heroes, lords, a hell-pit abomination) after my friends and narrating their heroic charges, valiant defenses, and other stuff. I think it's working.
milkandcookies put up a custom battle he did of lizardmen versus a VC faction he unlocked through the Radious mod and it may have been the most epic thing I've ever witnessed in a video game. Video here if you want to watch an epic battle of dinosaurs versus skeletons. Complete with a fun 5 minute lore talk off.
And speaking of mods it looks like the Workshop went live a few hours ago.
And speaking of mods it looks like the Workshop went live a few hours ago.
Cool. Do mods affect achievements? I think I would like to use the better camera one and the one that skips the logos at game start. Potentially also the Better Sieges mod I just saw.
PeskyToaster
Member
My main army got sandwiched while besieging one of the Tor Elasor islands. We somehow managed to fight off the garrison army and the flanking army. There was some cliffs where I parked my warp cannons with a couple stormvermin halberds. The elves had a star dragon, moon dragon, fire phoenix, ice phoenix, and two great eagles so my cannons definitely had their work cut out for them. Luckily they sent those units in a straight line at my battery and I had weakened them with an Assassin so they got pummeled. Killed the two dragons and nearly killed the two phoenixes in just the early trading of blows. Biggest problem was a massive array of Sea Guards and archers just machine-gunning arrows at me plus the nasty shock cavalry. They had some top-tier units like Swordsmen of Hoeth, Phoenix guard, and Dragon Knights. I was able to pester their archers with Menace Below while a group of stormvermin and several warpfire units I hid around the cliff got into position and just roasted their main contingent of melee. I also had two Doomwheels roll right into that giant block of archers, so glorious. It got tight when Queek was surrounded by those birds, Amon, and their shock cavalry but wow we pulled it off. All the Isles of Tor Elasor are mine for the taking. Such an awesome battle.
In conclusion, get in on this game people.
In conclusion, get in on this game people.
Melhisedek
Member
I swear to god when I read this I get all fired up
One last question than, is this TW game good for a new player or should I go back and start with some other first to get used to mechanics?
PeskyToaster
Member
Yeah if you have previous RTS and maybe Civ experience, you'll be able to slide right in to this game. Not necessary to have though, don't be afraid that it's Total Warhammer TWO. They gave it some QoL improvements that make it a lot smoother of an experience for new and old players. I'd get the first game contingent on two reasons. 1. If you're a warhammer fan who really wants to play one of the factions only available in TW1 or 2. If you can get a hold of it cheap for the upcoming Mortal Engines release (the combination of both games into one campaign). I think 2 has more interesting factions, more focused campaign, and a better user experience.
If you're looking to get into the Historical side, everyone has their own favorites because the game has evolved over the years. I think Empire is the secret best one but, like I said, everyone has their faves. Benefit of those is that you can get them super cheap but I think Total War Warhammer 2 is an excellent starting point if you don't mind new release prices.
If you're looking to get into the Historical side, everyone has their own favorites because the game has evolved over the years. I think Empire is the secret best one but, like I said, everyone has their faves. Benefit of those is that you can get them super cheap but I think Total War Warhammer 2 is an excellent starting point if you don't mind new release prices.
LurkerPrime
Member
I am determined to complete a Very Hard campaign... yet at every turn I am defeated. Played TWWH2 for 50 hours through various campaigns and am no closer to victory.
This time around, it feels like you need to actually be good at combat to compete in Very Hard. (I mostly autoresolved in TWWH1.)
Welp. Time to try Malekith again.
This time around, it feels like you need to actually be good at combat to compete in Very Hard. (I mostly autoresolved in TWWH1.)
Welp. Time to try Malekith again.
Sändersson
Member
The auto resolve seems to be pretty useless. Like in my last campaign every fight againts bigger dark elf garrisons for example gave my main helf army like 40% win chance. Then after actually playing the match manually I lost like 100 units (not a single unit card) tops while the garrison got wiped. The game seems to "underestimate" my armies constantly. Today I played around with skaven and there is literally no way im gonna push that auto resolve just to see half of my army get wiped out while I wont lose a single unit if playing manually. So atleast from where im standing, I really suggest you play battles manually and only use auto resolve when its an easy one.
Pyros_Eien
Member
Sändersson;251077583 said:
Autoresolve follows specific rules, it doesn't take into account skill and strategies obviously. Some rules are that ranged units are very potent, and especially artillery with a lot of ammo, because in the calculations artillery will fire all its ammo assuming you have enough melee units to hold the line in the simulation. You also need some melee units as ranged units, even with good melee stats(sea guards) will do terribly. But if you have few melee units, they'll take most of the damage and die, so you need a fair amount of them. Also the weaker ones will take more damage than the stronger ones, but not averaged. If you have 1spearman, 1white lion and 6 phoenix guards, the spearman will die and the white lion will die/be at low hp, while the phoenix guards will be mostly untouched.
Overall though I haven't had an issue with dark elf garrisons autoresolve. I bring a lot of archers and spearmen(in my main army I replaced the spearmen with swordsmen of hoeth) and it autoresolves everything with minimal losses other than the Ulthuan gate fights(dark elves took one of these before I kicked them out and that one was rough due to the super powerful garrison). On the other hand, I haven't had to fight a battle in a while with my army because I autoresolve everything.
But generally speaking, manually fighting will yield much better results, at the expense of time. In some cases, autoresolving will yield better results due to weird calculations however. For example against a rogue army with 12 dragons, autoresolve was giving me a 50% chance to win, even though manually I got wiped pretty hard. I did kill a bunch, but I wasn't close to winning with their tree lord being at full hp with a bunch of dryads at full hp too and 3 of the dragons being healthy still(I did kill like 7 or them though and the rest was pretty low).
Skaven is definitely underestimated on autoresolve though, pretty sure because of the expendable tag on clanrats/slaves which makes them worth almost nothing in autoresolve, which was changed back in the first game where people were autoresolving zombies and crap with VC. It also doesn't count menace below at all, so it's very poor for skaven, I had to fight half my fights in the entire campaign. That includes a lot of very easy fights and garrison attacks with slave armies and stuff that was pretty pointless, although at some point I stopped caring, autoresolved into losing like half my slave army, and just rebuilding it in 1turns since you can recruit slaves anywhere without any buildings+global recruitment in one turn, for an irrelevant cost.
Sändersson
Member
Makes sense.
Any additional tips for the skaven campaign? How fast should I build a second army and should I go for the empty province next to me right away or not?
the rule of the first game was "you win the game on the campaign map, and maybe one or two moderately challenging battles against slightly unfavorable odds". In game 2, you simply can't win with economy alone on VH because every AI faction is game 1 Dwarves now, so you have to make for it by methodically grinding down the AI over a series of tough battle
I haven't had the chance to play in a while though, only did 50 turns of Skaven and 20 of DE
ohyescoolgreat
Neo Member
I assume you're playing as Clan Pestilence? I stuck with 1 army for a about 40 turns due to the upkeep increase for additional lords on v hard difficulty but in hindsight I should have stuck with clanrats as my bulk force due to the bug with Skrolk not having the full discount for plaguemonks in effect.Sändersson;251111531 said:
Skaven garrisons are very good if you invest in the garrison buildings so they should often be sufficient for defending in early to mid game. Late game the settlements should all have walls so if an elite tier moves close to besiege you, as long as you have an army with a few turns march, you should be safe. Just keep an eye on all of your borders particularly the south eastern peninsula.
I'd recommend strongly against going heavy magic on Skrolk to start with. I'd go for a 50/50 split on spells and army buff tree so you can maximize the trash in your army. The armour debuff spell is a very good one to put some points into early.
If you go for the empty province to your right, be prepared to face off against high elves and if that happens, you'll likely need to sail out and raze the island settlement as well (settle it if playing on lower difficultly as the climate debuff won't be as pronounced when combined with general public order debuff. Don't get attached to this settlement as it's hard to defend against late tier armies unless you want to babyit it with an army which is wasteful. There are plenty of better settlements to take.
Also be mindful of how quickly you expand due to the food meter. Each settlement increases your meter capacity so if you expand too quickly, you'll find yourself at a food defecit quickly (happened to me when I confederated with Clan Skyre). I don't think using food to quickly upgrade settlements is really worth it but if you're in the green and know you'll get some food from defeating armies and razing in the next few turns then sure, throw some food at a settlement.
I actually didn't do a lot of experimentation with the roster and various army builds as I got into a comfortable groove with my plaguemonk/clanrats/ogre/arty combo. I'll be starting a Clan Mors campaign on legendary (rip me) so will play around with the roster some more and figure out some more optimal strategies.
Pyros_Eien
Member
Sändersson;251111531 said:
I think there's some different ways to do it, the other poster mentionned not making a 2nd army until 40, but by 40 I had like 5armies running around probably, peaked at 8 around midgame and stayed at that until I got a bunch of them wiped during a ritual+hexaotl incursion gone bad at which point I went down to 7 but upgraded them(mind you I had like 40+settlements at that point so money wasn't much of a concern).
As far as I understand, there's basically 2 main ways to go about Skaven play.
You either play with one very strong stack+menace below to beat absolutely everything, but you have to progress very methodically and slowly. Can leave maybe 1slave stack on defense but additional armies hurt a lot due to the high value of your main stack. Or you play with a large amount of armies that are 100% slaves besides your main army which can have a few better units(clanrats if you're squeek, plaguemonks if you're skrolk, due to their innate upkeep reduction) but still largely slaves. Also on VH you want all of them to get the blue line for upkeep reduction and you want to rush that tech for slave upkeep reduction asap. That's for every factions imo, on VH/legendary the upkeep penalty has to be offset by the blue line and tech otherwise it's a pain.
Playing on slave economy lets you spread out a lot more, but you kinda have to move with 2 armies in every direction and you'll have to manual most of your fights since autoresolve is hugely not in your favor if you do that. You also cannot ever fight on water. On the other hand if you manually fight, it's very easy to win pretty much any fight with 2 slave armies and a plague caster until you fight the dino stacks(the ones spawned by the ritual with like 6dinos) or the endgame high elf stacks with dragons+phoenix+cav+tons of seaguards. It can also be a bit boring I guess since you play the same units for a long period of time.
The good part is you can spread wide on the map, you can attack multiple directions, merge up and conquer large bits of the map at once. You can also easily leave 2-3 armies on defense at various annoying points(as skrolk, that southeast high elf port is a must to protect since the high elves from tor ansor or whatever will keep sending armies your ways across the sea since they generally don't have too many other enemies) and you'll still have enough to progress smoothly in multiple directions.
And once you have conquered a large chunk of the map, you can drop say 2armies of slave and make one good army(you keep the good lords, kick the lower lvl ones) and convert them like that. Slave armies are still good for defense though or just to cover more ground and their upkeep is stupidly low considering their power level in manual fights.
Also one advice for additional armies is, there's pretty much no reason to not use a plague grey seer in every army if you want to be efficient. It's a bit boring, you can mix it up with like a warlord and a plague monk hero to do the casting, but plague grey seers are just really strong, the bell is awesome and does heavy infantry damage while making them actually pretty tanky and the plague spells are just too good, with Vermintide/13th spell, Wither and Plague/Pestilent Breath if you have some additional power to burn.
As for the map stuff, I guess it depends, the way I started as skrolk I went right first, I think maybe after attacking the stack of lizards to the left I forgot. After getting the right lizard stuff, I went back left to get one more settlement to complete the province, then made a 2nd army to colonize all the ruins on the southern edge. After that I went north a bit to push the lizardmen further up, then went west, killed Teclis, killed the dwarfs on the way back(they made peace with me after I kicked their ass when they tried to kill me so I kept them for last), at which point I had secured all of the south, so the only annoyance was the elves sending armies across the sea so I always left 1-2slave stacks at the bottom right(2 at first, 1 once I got the walls up). After that just work your way north. The vampire coast is extremely high value so I'd recommend right side first, although on the left side there's a food settlement that you'll want, I kinda went there then stopped and left a slave stack there for like 20turns while I was getting the other side.
That's how I did it but you could probably do it differently tbh.
Edit: Looked at the records feed thing to see what I did, made the 2nd army on turn 4, probably to defend my capital while I went right. I made my 3rd army on turn 20, 4th on 44, 5th on 69, 6th and 7th on 86, 8th on 104, then reworked the armies starting turn 138. Until then other than my main army they were all slave armies.
Sändersson
Member
Thank you to both of you, I will keep these tips close to my heart when I attempt a second run with the skaven tonight.
ohyescoolgreat
Neo Member
Sändersson;251118731 said:Thank you to both of you, I will keep these tips close to my heart when I attempt a second run with the skaven tonight.
It's a fun faction to play as because it has a bit more to manage on the campaign map that give Skaven more nuance than the other 3 races. You don't need to be as conservative as I was with when you make a second stack, I enjoy the challenge of garrisons fighting an invading army plus by turn 40 I had money in the bank for days.
Also another thing: assassin heroes are not an optimal hero choice to focus on in my opinion. They're the easiest to build early game so sure, grab one to fight other heroes etc but I wouldn't build strategies around them. Warplock engineers have good synergies with armies, aren't terrible at fighting and can help you with research increase (research is very important to get the best return on infantry for your warhammerdollars).
I started out with Tyrion - High Elves for my first campaign and put a few hours in but ultimately felt incredibly bored very quickly. I was a bit concerned as I've always been a Total War fan and had never felt that way with a fresh game before.
Started a new campaign as Maleketh - Dark Elves and holy shit. WAY better. Just so much more action on this side of the world immediately. I've got rival Dark Elf factions coming after me, hordes of Skaven, Warherds ransacking my territory and Norscen men at my border who I know are going to attack me soon enough. It's been non-stop action.
Something about the starting island that Tyrion begins on is super safe and boring.
Started a new campaign as Maleketh - Dark Elves and holy shit. WAY better. Just so much more action on this side of the world immediately. I've got rival Dark Elf factions coming after me, hordes of Skaven, Warherds ransacking my territory and Norscen men at my border who I know are going to attack me soon enough. It's been non-stop action.
Something about the starting island that Tyrion begins on is super safe and boring.
Tyrion game is the easiest one. Great starting location and no corruption around. You can easily expand your empire by devouring other Elf factions. Whether it be by war or forming a federation.
PeskyToaster
Member
Upper-tier skaven units are awesome. flamethrowers, doomwheels, hell-pit abominations. So awesome. That's pretty much my goal in total war games; craft the coolest looking army and meticulous build the coolest deployment formation pre-battle then watch them march down the field. It's all I want in life.
LurkerPrime
Member
I'm partial to the Dark Elves--Dragons and dark knights are my jam.
Also, Malekith has edged out Grimgor as my favourite legendary lord. He's got the looks, the style, the power, and a dragon, too. What more could you want?
Rest assured, the Norsca will attack you en masse. Fortunately their limited unit roster is a pushover vs. Dark Elf armies. It's annoying conquering them, but necessary.
I'm really afraid to see what DLC Norsca will be like. I suspect... all mammoths, all the time. In TWWH1 they completely devour everything; with TWWH2's AI bonuses, I suspect it will be far worse.
Also, Malekith has edged out Grimgor as my favourite legendary lord. He's got the looks, the style, the power, and a dragon, too. What more could you want?
Rest assured, the Norsca will attack you en masse. Fortunately their limited unit roster is a pushover vs. Dark Elf armies. It's annoying conquering them, but necessary.
I'm really afraid to see what DLC Norsca will be like. I suspect... all mammoths, all the time. In TWWH1 they completely devour everything; with TWWH2's AI bonuses, I suspect it will be far worse.
LurkerPrime
Member
have you played any turn based strategy game? the campaign part of the total war is very similar to games like CIV, paradox,etc. (it is simpler then those games). This said if you enjoy warcraft i'm sure you will at least enjoy the battles of warhammer total war.
You can start with any total war, i suggest you pick an era you like. For example if you want fantasy pick warhammer, roman empire-> rome 2; fall of the roman empire-> attila, samurai ->shogun 2.
Every game ranges from good to great and on the whole they all have the same "problems".
If you are wondering between warhammer 1 and warhammer 2 you should know that:
-warhammer 2 is better in almost every way (specially the UI and the performance) but currently doesn't have as much content as the previous game. warhammer 1 has 9 races playable (4 are DLC) while warhammer 2 has only 4.
- In a few "weeks" a new campaign will be released for warhammer 2 which will add the previous races of warhammer 1 into a merged map of warhammer 1 and warhammer 2. You need to own both warhammer 2 and warhammer 1 to play it.
IMO if money isn't an issue go with warhammer 2 then buy warhammer 1 on sale so you can access the "old" races. If you are tight for money warhammer 1 is cheaper then warhammer 2.
Just a heads up that on warhammer 2 you can only play co-op with lords from the same race. In case your friends want to start with different races.
Tyrion has a really easy campaign, i'm on very hard and i don't think i have had a challenging battle in my 60 turns. Take a chance with him
Yes it is possible to confederate other HE, however that is relatively rare. For the AI to confederate with you you should be quite a bit stronger then the AI and the AI must be heavily losing a war.
As tyrion I recommend wiping out any HE that are likely to stab you in the back (they have traits like aggressive) and have 1 complete province with 4 settlements. You should make sure to get at least 1 settlement that boosts the ritual resource. As you do rituals you will get bonus relations with the HE so ignore those that aren't likely to send DoW to you.
After having everything int he mainland safe wipe sartosa, they are easy to beat and are a relatively safe haven for you.
After this you have 2 paths, either push against the DE and invade nagaroth or invade the southlands. Normally teclis will be able to dominate lustria so you can ignore that continent.
In my 3 playthroughs (one hard and 2 very hard) of the game DE always end up being the strongest contender for the ritual so I'd wage war against them however if you capture most of the southlands you can probably beat them to the ritual.
Pyros_Eien
Member
I've confederated everyone but one faction. I declared war on them on turn 1, killed them pretty early, after that I just sat back and confederated everyone else even though I was weak. Open trades with everyone, give influence to the one who's the most friendly and go kill Skaeling/the horse marauders/dark elves and everyone will confederate with you eventually, it just takes a bunch of turns since you can only confederate one faction every 5turns, and you get massive public order penalties doing it so you can't necessarily chain them. I could probably have confederated the first faction too but it gave me a bit more settlements to work with.
It's actually not super hard to confederate as high elves especially with the influence mechanic. getting high elf diplomacy tech/lord skill tree/ritual bonus also helps a lot since it'll basically cancel out the aversion/great power negative.
As for tips specifically for confederating, make 1 or 2 nobles, sail to naggaroth and just spam hero actions on settlements to steal influence there. The hero actions against Naggaroth raise your rating with every high elf factions, and the influence can be used to further improve relations with a specific one, focus on one that has good settlements you want first and feed them a lot of influence, some gold too if you have some. Doesn't hurt sending an army to kill some dark elves while you're at it. I also recommend clearing out the pirates and the chaos marauders out(just raze everything, not really worth building with climate penalties imo), this tends to also gives positive attitude and deals with the issue of having raids everywhere. You can also just sit back in your one starting province and wait until you confederate stuff, there isn't really a need to move out but that's kinda boring. Tyrion has a diplomacy skill in the non combat tree, that's the one I took personally since I liked the other stuff too. And there's a tech to increase high elves diplomacy that's worth taking(it goes into +2 lord ranks too which is nice for making new armies). Then just keep feeding influence into stuff and making non agression pacts/trading/defensive and military alliances with everyone, until confederation opens up. For most of them I had to pay 5-10k gold to get them to go through, but that wasn't a big deal.
LurkerPrime
Member
Fighting Norsca as Malekith is just the worst. They have so many armies, so many settlements, and all of that corruption causing things to move slowly. Plus, currently my research rate is at 40% thanks to all of their hero spam. I've spent a solid 30 turns trudging through these horrors.
On the bright side, I'm nearly done in this chaotic war. The Northern Norsca are obliterated, and the Northwestern one has committed to peace, which means it's time to position my armies to begin razing their cities. Once this is done, my crusade against the High Elves can begin.
One troublesome bug I noticed during my time woth DEs: when a wall finishes building and the AI sieges it all during one turn, on your turn the settlement will only have the first unit of garrisons (so, a single unit), plus whatever the wall adds. It happened at the Altar of Ultimate Evil, which is a location that has had weird bugs before.
The garrison bug appears to fix itself after the next turn was reached.
On the bright side, I'm nearly done in this chaotic war. The Northern Norsca are obliterated, and the Northwestern one has committed to peace, which means it's time to position my armies to begin razing their cities. Once this is done, my crusade against the High Elves can begin.
One troublesome bug I noticed during my time woth DEs: when a wall finishes building and the AI sieges it all during one turn, on your turn the settlement will only have the first unit of garrisons (so, a single unit), plus whatever the wall adds. It happened at the Altar of Ultimate Evil, which is a location that has had weird bugs before.
The garrison bug appears to fix itself after the next turn was reached.
unless you play on legenday, pause the battle often and use the slow mode frequently
for army composition, try to not use too many ranged units in a standard composition (maybe 4 or so), and protect their flanks. A single unit of cheap Empire Knights for example can make all your ranged units useless if they stand next to each other and you have nothing to protect them
to combat ranged units and artillery, use fliers and cav and other fast units like hounds or chariots (chariots are tanks in this game, super durable). Don't send them ahead on their own unless their target is isolated. I normally first engage with my bulk infantry and position my ranged units-hunters to let them close the gap quickly. When a unit runs, it's often better to disengage and run into the next active target. Get used to cycle charges with charge-focused cavalry (lances, mostly) and chariots, meaning you let them complete their charge, then disengage and charge again. Try to always charge into the rear and flank of enemy units. An ideal use for a cav units would be to run around the enemy army, charge into their archers in the back, charge into another unit when they flee, then charge into the back of the enemy melee line which is currently engaged with your own infantry, and so on
the direct counter to mounted ranged units are ranged units on foot
don't waste your super expensive units to run after archers or warmachines, unless you really have to
warmachines are a priority target, take them out as soon as possible. When the crew runs, it's generally better to find the next target, crews take forever to get back to their warmachine
melee generals and heroes will tear through line infantry and most non-elite units. Even mages are quite capable in combat against low-to-mid tier units. They can also deal with monsters, but you better send another unit to support them. The first thing my general usually does is hunt down their general. Make sure your general and hero auras cover the bulk of your army
summon magic is extremely useful, either to take out ranged units, summon fodder to occupy their big bad monster or elite knights, or get them in the rear of the enemy line to break their moral
Partyelite has a lot of good videos on youtube explaining the mechanics.
While i haven't tried the DE, the easiest race to fight in battles is the lizardmen. This is mostly due to the massive health pool of their saurus units (they have 100 models with a total of 10000 HP).
I also advise to actually fight most battle even those you will win with auto resolve. I think the hardest part of total war is learning to be patient; it is very hard on disengage most units from combat so when you commit a unit to a fight you should be sure that that unit is needed the most there.
Most people I have taught also don't save 2-3 units as a reserve force. These reserves are meant to reinforce losing battles giving time for your cavalry/strong units to topple the battle to your favor.