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New Total War game: Warhammer

Seethe

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 22, 2015
Messages
967
I have finished my Dark Elf campaign. Easily the strongest and even funnest campaign from Warhammer 2 imo. The slave income is insane, the buffs for the lords at level 10 are fun, Malekith is a killing machine, shades are now one of my favorite units in the game. If only the Black Arks weren't shit, but still, really well designed overall. Also the cauldron of blood is cool to look at.


I might give Choices and Consequences a chance. Is it worth? I am interested a lot in the skill trees, because they aren't simply "put one more point for 5% more health" kind of crap. And the unit caps are a fantastic addition
I think C&C is worth a try. The skill trees can be a little jarring at first, because there are so many more skills and it requires scrolling to see everything. Typically, the skills are organized in groups of three or sometimes two, and picking one skill locks out the other options. Here are a couple of examples for Malekith:
  1. Late in the skill tree for Malekith, you must choose between Seraphon (dragon mount for Malekith) or Kindle Hatred. Kindle Hatred is a constant aura that grants 20% armor piercing and Weapon Strength. While Kindle Hatred may appear like the superior choice, I have had to heavily lean on Malekith and Lords to win battles, especially when the AI brings 3 stacks and ambush me. Units have much higher health pools in C&C, and magic/lords can perform most of the heavy lifting. It is not uncommon for my Witch Elves/Executioners to have 50-80 kills, while my lords have hundreds of kills.
  2. Early in the tree, you must choose between Stealth, Prepared, or a Banner for Darkshards. Stealth grants stalk to Darkshards, movement speed bonus at rank 4, and 25% to armor piercing values at rank 7. Prepared grants Darkshards 15% range, vigor resistance at rank 4, and 35% ammunition at rank 7. The banner grants either 20% ward save or magic save (I forget which) to a unit.
  3. Another late skill tree decision is between Warleader, which grants 10% upkeep reduction for all armies and other bonus, and [forget the name] that grants 50% captives and 100% bonus to gold for sacking settlements.

One criticism (or two) is that the battles can become Herohammer, if that makes sense. Lords with magic can determine a fight. I had a battle with 3-4 skavens stacks against my one army, and the only reason I won is because Malekith's Gaze of Malice spell could nearly wipe out closely packed skaven units. Magic can be overpowered, but the spell costs appear much higher as well, so you have to choose between buffs/debuffs is a long fight or damage spells to end a fight early.

Also, auto-resolve can be dangerous, even when you have 90% victory rate. Replenishment is very low in the beginning for Dark Elves, and if you lose a high ranked unit, the replacement unit does not instantly obtain the Lord buffs.

Yeah, I tried doing an autoresolve with the Empire army, and it wrecked half of it. Wow. I am kind of a fan of that actually, because it encourages me to fight battles in which I'd have fewer casualties if I were to autoresolve. Might be tedious in some situations though.

Another question: does SFO have unit caps as well?
 

Maculo

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 30, 2013
Messages
2,533
Strap Yourselves In Pathfinder: Wrath
SFO has unit caps for "legendary" units if I recall correctly, but not for regular or higher tiered units. Higher tiered units in SFO also can get pretty crazy (e.g., Grail Guardian is like a miniature Doomguy). Tomb Kings have unit caps to begin with, and C&C just brings that same limitations to all factions.

It can be tedious, but at least the tedium has a payoff. I have experienced some tough battles from the AI, especially when an enemy spellcaster is attached, and a few extra troops make a big difference. The AI also seems to bring 2-3 stacks and attempts to ambush far more often than I remember in vanilla or SFO.

All in all, I am pleasantly surprised.
 

Parabalus

Arcane
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
17,432
jvT9RbD0xpGEVSSl1Mmj3IzZrwFnzN3iT0Ziq_gF3iE.jpg
 

Anthedon

Arcane
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Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
4,499
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Finished a HE Vortex campaign (Alarielle) with CTT just now. I'll definitely keep that mod. The less steep unit gradient and the restrictions on elites are fine additions to the game. I'm not quite sure what to make of all the unit rebalancing yet, I'll have to play other factions for that. Or I'd have to know Warhammer tabletop, which I don't.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,506
Something about infringing on the Man O' War game/license. It looks pretty shovelware though.

I would be happy with just a "duke it out at an island" option, this forced autoresolve stuff is retarded.
I looked into that, and it looks like CA don't wanna to make naval combat because it would have to make SEVERAL tens of different ship models.
 

Seethe

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 22, 2015
Messages
967
Something about infringing on the Man O' War game/license. It looks pretty shovelware though.

I would be happy with just a "duke it out at an island" option, this forced autoresolve stuff is retarded.
I looked into that, and it looks like CA don't wanna to make naval combat because it would have to make SEVERAL tens of different ship models.

Yeah, CA denied the whole Man'O'War thing, and confirmed that they simply "don't have the resources".
 

covr

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Sep 3, 2006
Messages
1,315
Location
Warszawa
That's just modern gamedev in a nuthshell: spend millions of dollars on cinematics and voice acting for a strategy game, cannot afford buying 50 models of fucking ships.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
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Mar 16, 2007
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Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I for one am pretty happy they don't have naval combat.
That is something that has never turned out well outside of pure naval combat games (and even in those, usually).

To do it well would be worthy a game of it's own.

On the other hand, they really do have the base game down now.
So now they could go and add that feature, maybe to TW:W3, but it seems they don't want to.
 

Raghar

Arcane
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Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,506
That's just modern gamedev in a nuthshell: spend millions of dollars on cinematics and voice acting for a strategy game, cannot afford buying 50 models of fucking ships.
What cinematics? If they spend money on cinematic they would earn few less millions. They can't do that. They would offend theirs owners.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,506
I wish they had spent some money on cinematics so you'd get a proper end game scene instead of that fast-forward stuff :lol:
In Warhammer they still created proper animated intros. It was Warhammer 2 they started to save money even on intros.
 

Frusciante

Cipher
Joined
Aug 24, 2012
Messages
716
Project: Eternity
Hypothetically, how do you all think Dogs of War would work? Similar to the Tomb Kings, the new campaign does not have to interact with the Vortex rituals. Personally, if CA adds Dogs of War, then I would expect the inclusion of Vampire Coast to serve as the antagonist (Luthor Harkon). Dogs of War would have Sartosa as the start location, whereas Vampire Coast would have....Vampire Coast.

I just hope they put in Araby instead of Dogs of War, much more interesting faction
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,506
Araby? Muslim terrorists? That would be quite hard to do in UK...

Of course in WH they are likely not muslims.
 

A horse of course

Guest
Hypothetically, how do you all think Dogs of War would work? Similar to the Tomb Kings, the new campaign does not have to interact with the Vortex rituals. Personally, if CA adds Dogs of War, then I would expect the inclusion of Vampire Coast to serve as the antagonist (Luthor Harkon). Dogs of War would have Sartosa as the start location, whereas Vampire Coast would have....Vampire Coast.

I just hope they put in Araby instead of Dogs of War, much more interesting faction

I sincerely doubt it since they already overhauled that part of the map with Tomb Kangz. It's also be pretty weird in Mortal Empires since the only areas they could realistically occupy are the Errantry colonies, which are even smaller in the ME map. A Southern Realms/Dogs of War faction would make a lot more sense being spread out over the Vortex campaign and probably including Tilea/Estalia in ME.
 

Lone Wolf

Arcane
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Joined
Apr 17, 2014
Messages
3,703
The addition of Sartosa suggests that either the DoW or the Southern Realms are the next campaign pack.

Considering that Cataph's Southern Realms is basically a mod expansion, they might be tempted to go DoW for a different campaign experience/asymmetric gameplay.
 

Seethe

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 22, 2015
Messages
967
The addition of Sartosa suggests that either the DoW or the Southern Realms are the next campaign pack.

Considering that Cataph's Southern Realms is basically a mod expansion, they might be tempted to go DoW for a different campaign experience/asymmetric gameplay.

I hope so. I am really interested in their concepts, I wonder how they will work out on the Vortex map.
 

A horse of course

Guest
Back in May 2016 when we first launched Warhammer 1 we were treading on some very new and exciting ground for the Total War series. Which if I'm honest was also a little scary not knowing how our passionate fans would take to us dipping our toes into a fantasy setting and trying a few new things that would change up the game as we knew it whilst still trying to remain true to our roots of a deep empire strategy builder with real-time battles.

A few months on and we had received a really positive reception regarding the game’s core design pillar of asymmetric design between our core races. This really started to breed excitement and confidence across the team in our work and particularly in me to keep pushing the DLC design in this direction with the new content team.

Call of the Beastmen marked the games first major DLC drop and gave us a chance to add something new an exciting to experience. I knew early on that beyond the characters and units of the race the pack needed something a little extra to set it apart from what now seems like our very conservative initial races, so mini campaign aside which we have since changed our approach on, the addition of making the Beastmen vanguard deploy en masse as a whole army really changed things up for us. This small but simple inclusion was quite radical at the time for Total War and seems very little now but it set the tone for what we would deliver in the future and allow us to become more experimental and daring in our designs (see Tomb Kings where money was removed from recruiting units). Of course we added much more than that, with hidden encampments, some rather nifty Minotaur rolling attack animations, the Full Moon mechanic and a novel and thematic way to conclude the campaign with the Fall of a Man final battle.

With each subsequent DLC we looked at new ways of adding even more, whether that be through new campaign mechanics like Amber, or Chivalry, the addition of new Legendary Lords with unique faction effects, skills and starting locations, or more complete army rosters with added lores of magic. All the while addressing any bugs and balancing issues. Doing this all had an effect on the time in which it took to create each new pack, whether it be the art time to create the environments and characters, audio to voice them or the design and code to make all the new content function. But in general each project was getting bigger in size, requiring more members of staff to be involved and taking more time to create and test before it was ready for release.

Then came Norsca, the finale of Warhammer 1 and the Foundation update. This was to be the opportunity to create a fitting end to the first game, up the ante for what was to come in Warhammer 2 and go back and spruce up a few of the old cast, in particular Chaos. With Norsca being made at the same time as Warhammer 2 but still using the Warhammer 1 code base, it caused us a whole host of issues when trying to merge them which we have explained at great depth in past blogs and it certainly put us back when first embarking on new content, but it is by no means the reason why our newer DLCs are now taking longer to create.

One of the main contributors in the added time is the addition of Mortal Empires. Having in essence a second grand campaign with 40+ starting characters alongside the Vortex campaign’s 16 simply takes longer for us as a team to build a second startpos, add all the new content and mechanics whilst also doing the same in the Vortex, with its feature set, extras and improvements over Warhammer 1. Each of these massive campaigns certainly has its own unique nuances when being updated and built, whether that be through the geography of the map, available characters and races or missions and events that unfold. We work closely with Games Workshop on all of these plans to ensure they stay true and faithful to the lore, and of course everything is tested and balanced before we can release.

Likewise with the added design depth and flavour of the new campaign and battle mechanics introduced by the second game, all of this adds on that bit of extra time. Things like Army abilities and Rites simply didn't exist in the first game, but they are now staples of what is required now in the current game. The same can be said of the Vortex ritual movies in the campaign and the bold new race mechanics which are diverse across all races and now even stretch to the new individual Lords with the release of the Queen and the Crone.

As a team we want to keep pushing the envelope on design and quality, whilst also bringing you new fresh experiences, but this does come at a cost, and one of time to design and implement. Sure we could do less new things and keep it more like the first game in terms of scope, to keep things coming out at a slightly quicker rate but I think we would be doing you, the lore and ourselves a major disservice.

We also think about user reviews on Warhammer 1 which do complain about the amount of DLC. Obviously we couldn’t add new content to the game without DLC, but we think getting the balance right is important.

Hence this is why we take that bit longer now to get things right, unique and packed full of content. Because believe you me as a gamer myself I know what it feels like to want to get your hands on something new that you have such a passionate interest in and so nothing makes me happier than to get each new DLC released and into your hands as quickly as possible so you can play it for hours on end.

I hope this shows where we as a team have come from with your help and input, how things have changed from game 1 to 2 and where we are heading next in bringing you further deep and meaningful content. Warhammer Fantasy Battles offers so many amazing characters, stories and places, I feel like we have still only scratched the surface in what we can do technically but also the adventures and experiences we can offer you in leading your favourite characters and races.

Rich

downvotin
 

Seethe

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 22, 2015
Messages
967
We also think about user reviews on Warhammer 1 which do complain about the amount of DLC. Obviously we couldn’t add new content to the game without DLC, but we think getting the balance right is important.

This is idiotic no matter which way you put it. Why the hell would you listen to these people, instead of the loyal customers who do purchase content? Why would you demand CA to not release it in the first place? Regardless whether CA releases DLC or not, these morons will either not buy it or not get it anyway. What is the logic here? Depriving of content those who want it?
 

A horse of course

Guest
We also think about user reviews on Warhammer 1 which do complain about the amount of DLC. Obviously we couldn’t add new content to the game without DLC, but we think getting the balance right is important.

This is idiotic no matter which way you put it. Why the hell would you listen to these people, instead of the loyal customers who do purchase content? Why would you demand CA to not release it in the first place? Regardless whether CA releases DLC or not, these morons will either not buy it or not get it anyway. What is the logic here? Depriving of content those who want it?

I've read a LOT of interviews with CA over the past few years in which they repeatedly insist on how aggressive they are about culling stuff that comes up in negative reviews. Explains a lot of things if you browse metacritic reviews for the past few games.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,506
We also think about user reviews on Warhammer 1 which do complain about the amount of DLC. Obviously we couldn’t add new content to the game without DLC, but we think getting the balance right is important.

This is idiotic no matter which way you put it. Why the hell would you listen to these people, instead of the loyal customers who do purchase content? Why would you demand CA to not release it in the first place? Regardless whether CA releases DLC or not, these morons will either not buy it or not get it anyway. What is the logic here? Depriving of content those who want it?
Actually, they spawned bullshit. Obviously, they can't balance game to be balanced both with and without DLCs.
 

A horse of course

Guest
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https://www.totalwar.com/blog/what-the-teams-are-working-on-july-2018

Fantasy DLC Team

Not much to report on from our team following what we said in the last blog: we’re still working on the next campaign pack for WARHAMMER II and it’s still quite a while away.

What we can say is that we’re deep in the design phase and looking at some new and interesting campaign mechanics…

Main Fantasy Team - Pre-production

No news for the time being from the Fantasy team. Pre-production continues in earnest so lots of discussions, ideas, and concepts flying around in that area of the studio – it’s absolute Chaos.
 

Curry_Time

Barely Literate
Joined
Jul 11, 2018
Messages
1
Upcoming legendary lord seems to be a Lizardman. A skink priest, maybe? Not too sure if there are any notable ones in the lore.
 

A horse of course

Guest
Upcoming legendary lord seems to be a Lizardman. A skink priest, maybe? Not too sure if there are any notable ones in the lore.

There's a DE LL before that. I assume Malus Darkblade (zzzzzz) or the Black Ark corsair guy with a squid mask whose name escapes me.

Scaly LL - presumably with the Lord Pack in 2019 - would probably be Tenhuwhatever, who's basically Skink Trump, or Gor-Rok who's basically Krok but albino.
 

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