I wish to whine a bit about Total War: Warhammer.

[Zhukov]

Before I board the complain train, I want to make two things clear:

1 - Everything I say relates to the single player. I haven't touched the multiplayer and probably never will.

2 - I'm not a Total War regular. So I might be talking about problems that have been with the series since forever and not know it.

Okay then. Let's commence.

Playing the battles is completely pointless. There's no reason to actually play them yourself instead of just hitting the auto-resolve button. I'm not saying auto-resolve shouldn't exist, it's great for saving time on easy fights, but it renders the actual battles no more than a formality. Barring a massive disparity in unit quality, the biggest army will win so the battles are effectively decided on the campaign map before they're started. Which brings me to my next point...

The strategy layer of the game is decidedly meh. It's not terrible, but there's little depth and lots of busywork. Most of the finer details are of limited use compared to building a max-stack army and auto-resolving everyone to death. Which kiiiinda brings me to my next point...

The game doesn't really reward use of combined arms. Or at least doesn't require it. I am yet to encounter a situation that couldn't be solved by throwing a max-stack army of mid or high tier infantry at it. The only thing that stops a mass infantry rush is a bigger, better infantry mob. Everything else just gets overrun.

Lastly, Greenskins seem rather OP in the campaign. When one of your orc armies does enough fighting it declares a "Waaagh" and summons up a friendly, max-stack AI army that will follow it around joining in fights. The summoned armies tend to be low quality but the massive numbers advantage they give is more than enough to turn any battle into a trivial speedbump. The flipside is supposed to be that if your army doesn't find enough fights they start infighting, causing attrition. This is supposed to force you to be constantly picking fights with your neighbours just to keep your armies from falling apart which is nicely characteristic of the faction, however you can just set them to raid your own territory which keeps everyone happy and has negligible downsides. So you essentially get double-sized armies almost for free.

Maybe the multiplayer is the bee's knees but the single player campaign is decidedly unimpressive.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Play Medieval 2 with essential mods.

But to respond:

1. Auto Resolve has been always here and sort of been a problem, I try to play the campaigns without Auto Resolving at all. And trust me when I say you can make a difference during a battle where Auto Resolve just makes you lose because of stats. I say defy those stats.

4. All Horde Forces has this, Beastmen has it, and I believe Warriors of Chaos has it aswell. And no the Warriors are the most OP, especially if you have Kholek Suneater.

And I truly think this game does reward combined arms, I play Empire and I place my Artillery and infantry and missles strategically and calvery in the flanks.

I play custom games often where I can actually have the battles the way I want to happen. Battles in the campaign tend to be less eventful with the random selecetion of enemy units.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Comrade Marshall, I wish to respond to your field report.

1. Well this is really just an issue of personal preference isn't it? You play the battles because you enjoy them, not necessarily because you are determined to achieve maximum efficiency. While the auto-resolve's method of allotting victory does seem to be broken in favour of pure numbers, I've fought many a victorious battle against gigantic Orc and Undead hordes that really captured that Warhammer feel of making an epic last stand, so I disagree that there's no point as long as there's more of Them. I remain disappointed there are no choreographed fighting animations like the older TW titles though....

2. I will agree with this point though, the lack of variety in buildings and the huge economic bonuses you get from the heavens anyway strips away the strategic layer. I specialized different provinces in Rome 2 and Attila in order to form fortified bastions along likely invasion routes, or to serve as centres of scientific learning or agricultural production, but here I just put down whatever fits my peculiar sense of pride for the campaign: "This time around, Averheim shall be the holiest city and finest producer of cavalry in the Empire!". Don't get me wrong, the role-playing aspects of such an approach are definitely fun, there's just no sense of concern that I may be in for a hard fight if I don't prepare properly.

3. I only play as the glorious Empire so I'm not sure about other races - though that sounds like a very Chaos Warrior mindset, just smash all before you with your ridiculously uber heavy infantry - but combined arms is essential for the Sons of Sigmar. Unless you have a solid block of defensive infantry holding the line, supported by artillery and well-timed flank attacks from cavalry, you *will* fall.

4. Again, I'm an Empire player so I can't really comment on this beyond witnessing the rise of various Orc Waaaghs! that are pounding away at my Dwarven allies. I consider it a boon, since it's made the campaign so much more interesting to have to divide my forces between the oncoming Chaos onslaught from the north, and aiding the beleagued Dwarves in the east.

Or at least it would be, if Steam updates hadn't eaten my save. >_>

Presumably the AI is supposed to have built some mighty alliances to defend against Orc players when they reach that strength, but we all know how effective TW AI can be right?

Play Medieval 2 with essential mods.

I started playing Stainless Steel the other day: was absolutely terrified by the amount of changes, and went right back to vanilla, but it's remarkable how well the base game has aged. Currently having tremendous fun turning the Holy Roman Empire into a superpower on Hard, even if I have more Generals than I know what to do with, sitting around my beautiful, overcrowded cities getting drunk and whoring.

 

[Zhukov]

I've fought many a victorious battle against gigantic Orc and Undead hordes that really captured that Warhammer feel of making an epic last stand, so I disagree that there's no point as long as there's more of Them.

That does sound fun.

Maybe it's a faction thing. As Greenskins I prettymuch always outnumber the enemy. Plus I have enough money to build at least three more full armies if I wanted to. (Which would bring me to 12 total armies counting the Waaaghs, which is just ridiculous.)

3. I only play as the glorious Empire so I'm not sure about other races - though that sounds like a very Chaos Warrior mindset, just smash all before you with your ridiculously uber heavy infantry - but combined arms is essential for the Sons of Sigmar. Unless you have a solid block of defensive infantry holding the line, supported by artillery and well-timed flank attacks from cavalry, you *will* fall.

Would those battles not be won with a stack of 20 greatswords?

(Or 19 greatswords and a lord if we're being pedantic.)

Presumably the AI is supposed to have built some mighty alliances to defend against Orc players when they reach that strength, but we all know how effective TW AI can be right?

Heh.

My main challenge was another tribe of Greenskins. Topknots I think they were called. They swallowed up almost every other Greenskin faction and took a long time to grind down. Then a couple of Chaos stacks showed up. The game made a big deal about that. Then I swamped them in Waaaghs and auto-resolved them to death in one turn. It was decidedly anticlimactic. Now I'm spreading out into the Empire and scouting the rest of the map and it looks like those Chaos jokers burned down half the world on their way to me.

 

[BarryMcCociner]

That thing about battles? Yeah, that's kind of bullcrap you're posting.

See, I've managed to win battles with small armies against much larger armies even on Legendary. Things that auto resolve would have destroyed me on.

You can max stack and auto resolve all you want, but that's not as true to the Total War experience as learning the game well enough to turn a battle from a disadvantaged position into a major victory.

The game doesn't reward use of combined arms? Yeah, because you're max stacking and moshing. You gotta learn your positioning, putting stronger troops to block a charge and sending your weaker troops to attack flanks. Aggroing infantrymen away from the missile units they're protecting so your cavalry can run them down, basic medieval tactics that the game engine was built in mind with the player performing or at least attempting to. If you adopt these tactics you'll lose less troops and gain more kills and cause mass routes more quickly, making victory easier.

Greenskins are OP in campaign? Well, yeah but the thing is in Total War no downside is negligible, everything adds up and becomes worse over time if you don't address it. And the WAAAGH as a mechanic is supposed to push you to press the advantage you already have, why would you just have them sit and raid perpetually when they could be fighting?

What are you even doing in a Total War game that you'd have (at least) two armies on standby doing nothing, anyway? This isn't Hearts of Iron or Europa Universalis here, this is Total War, if you're not in an active war you're wasting time and money.

 

[meiam]

I'm not as down on it as you seem to be, but I kinda agree. After playing as undead, which have no range whatsoever, I'm pretty disappointed with range. Archer do far too little damage to be worth including, in most case by the time my melee unit got in range of the archer they'd only have lost maybe 5% of there troops, they then either proceed to pursue the archer to the end of the earth or they just kick there asses. Similar for artillery, I've never seen an artillery unit do enough damage to kill another stack, so logically I'd be better with some infantry rather than it, the only use it has is to force the enemy to attack you but that's only if your fighting away from forest and they don't have artillery too. Magic is also very weak, most of them kill like 5 troops, better to make lord into passive buff master or just super fighters, the only good magic are buff, debuff or summon. It seems like there only really good on defensive mission with walls.

Cavalry are mostly just annoying, sure they can slam into your infantry, but then they proceed to have there asses kicked, to be effective you have to micro manage them all the time and even then just more infantry get the jobs just as well, except you don't really have to manage them.

As for the waaagh, I never really understood how that was considered balance. I never played as greenskin but sometime the orc AI can get those out shockingly fast, faster than I can reasonably get a 20 army without ruining my economy, it just really force passive play since if you over extend you end up fighting huge army early.

But personally most of my complain with the total war franchise has always been linked to the weak city building aspect (shogun 2 was the most interesting one since special resource allowed for special building which made province feel varied) and what I call the benny hill situation, where an enemy army that's just a bit bigger than most town defense get behind the front line and proceed to raid all your town while your defender pointlessly try to stop them. Raiding a town should always take at least a full turn. This got really bad after I played knight of honor, which is so much better despite being like 15 year older.

 

[Zhukov]

You can max stack and auto resolve all you want, but that's not as true to the Total War experience as learning the game well enough to turn a battle from a disadvantaged position into a major victory.

Why not? It works.

The "true experience" you're describing is just a waste of time.

The game doesn't reward use of combined arms? Yeah, because you're max stacking and moshing.

Because it works. Really well,

You gotta learn your positioning, putting stronger troops to block a charge and sending your weaker troops to attack flanks. Aggroing infantrymen away from the missile units they're protecting so your cavalry can run them down, basic medieval tactics that the game engine was built in mind with the player performing or at least attempting to.

No, I don't have to do any of that. If the game was better balanced then I'd have to do that because my infantry mobs would be getting cut down by artillery or picked to death by mounted archers or something. But that isn't the case. As it is, I just need to know where the 'Recruit Black Orcs' button is.

If you adopt these tactics you'll lose less troops and gain more kills and cause mass routes more quickly, making victory easier.

Nah, I have a couple of armies doing that and they don't win any easier or faster then the Infantry Blob-o-Doom. They just require more micro to accomplish the same task. I mostly just do it for imaginary style points because selecting all my infantry and muttering "charge" got dull.

Greenskins are OP in campaign? Well, yeah but the thing is in Total War no downside is negligible, everything adds up and becomes worse over time if you don't address it. And the WAAAGH as a mechanic is supposed to push you to press the advantage you already have, why would you just have them sit and raid perpetually when they could be fighting?

Uhh, no, the downside is most definitely negligible. It causes disobedience, but not enough to actually drop the local obedience below 100%, and prevents the raided territory from producing full income. Just put the army in a non-income-focussed region and let them party. Given that I'm currently sitting on... lemme check... 350,000+ gold with an per turn income of 13,500+... yeah, negligible is the perfect word.

What are you even doing in a Total War game that you'd have (at least) two armies on standby doing nothing, anyway? This isn't Hearts of Iron or Europa Universalis here, this is Total War, if you're not in an active war you're wasting time and money.

I'm currently at war with 9 different factions. So yeah.

My static army is one I keep on the home front in case of unforeseen surprises while the other two (well, four, because Waaagh) go out and get work done.

 

[Bombiz]

I call the benny hill situation, where an enemy army that's just a bit bigger than most town defense get behind the front line and proceed to raid all your town while your defender pointlessly try to stop them. Raiding a town should always take at least a full turn. This got really bad after I played knight of honor, which is so much better despite being like 15 year older.

I've only ever had the Benny hill situation in Warhammer (which is why I build walls in all my settlements.).

 

[meiam]

I call the benny hill situation, where an enemy army that's just a bit bigger than most town defense get behind the front line and proceed to raid all your town while your defender pointlessly try to stop them. Raiding a town should always take at least a full turn. This got really bad after I played knight of honor, which is so much better despite being like 15 year older.

I've only ever had the Benny hill situation in Warhammer (which is why I build walls in all my settlements.).

Well warhammer makes it particularly bad since orcs and dwarf can go under mountain, so every settlement is always at risk of random enemy poping up. This just makes base building a bit boring since the first things you always have to build is wall, invariably and it just limit the options. There's also quite a few weird province with a few settlement all really close to each others so that in the same turn its possible to reach 2 of them, especially weird when the main town is really far from the settlement.

 

[spartandude]

Play Medieval 2 with essential mods.

As a Medieval 2 veteran but who has always played vanilla. What mods would you consider essential?

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Play Medieval 2 with essential mods.

As a Medieval 2 veteran but who has always played vanilla. What mods would you consider essential?

The Stainless Steel mod.

The Warhammer Fantasy mod.

The Zelda mod.

And the Lord of the Rings mod.

 

[DoPo]

Playing the battles is completely pointless. There's no reason to actually play them yourself instead of just hitting the auto-resolve button. I'm not saying auto-resolve shouldn't exist, it's great for saving time on easy fights, but it renders the actual battles no more than a formality. Barring a massive disparity in unit quality, the biggest army will win so the battles are effectively decided on the campaign map before they're started. Which brings me to my next point...

The last (and only) game I've played in the series was Medieval: Total War. Yes, there is no number - it was the first one. That point was largely true there, too. You could spend, like, an hour in battle or auto-resolve it. In most cases, it's the same thing. Occasionally you can get better results by playing the battle yourself - especially if you manage to glitch the AI in some way[footnote]One time I managed to win a battle over a much bigger army because I had something like a dozen archers and the AI didn't move his massive cavalry at all. I got some shots in to get the "combat advantage" and then ran my guys and waited out the timer.[/footnote] but, overall, I found that auto-resolving is much faster and better. I also found I liked that better - made me focus on the rest of the game more. The battles weren't really exciting enough to play them all the time and big ones just take so much time.

 

[Elijin]

My first thoughts are 'What difficulty are you playing on?', which matters only really in actual combat, not abusing the broken auto resolve mechanics. Hell, you even admitted you encountered an entire new faction and defeated them in 1 turn with auto-resolve. You never even played against a new faction.

The second thought is 'You're missing the point.' TW games aren't great 4X games. TW games are excellent skirmishers, with great battles.

The parting thought is that, and I know this wont matter, you're faulting a game for you picking on an AI's weak points. Its like in any other strategy game. The AI will fall for simple tactics that seem unbeatable, because the balance is based on player vs player interactions, where the same tactic against a human will result in a painful loss.

Essentially you're playing the game as a 4X, which is its weaker front, while overlooking that strategy AI almost always has blind spots where stacking one tactic gives an unwarranted advantage.

 

[Zhukov]

My first thoughts are 'What difficulty are you playing on?'

Just normal.

I'd never played a Total War game before except for a brief dapple with Napoleon and I'm not much at strategy, so I figured diving into the higher difficulties straight away would be a recipe for failure and frustration.

I'll give hard a go if I do a second campaign. Which faction would you recommend to get the most out of the combat?

...which matters only really in actual combat, not abusing the broken auto resolve mechanics.

I've actually found the auto-resolve to be rather accurate.

I've tried saving before a big battle then completing it by both fighting and auto resolving. The results were the same every time except once.

That one exception was a battle where I had a large army against a medium with a second enemy army reinforcing. The auto-resolve counted that as a certain loss for me, but I was able to win it manually by rushing the first army before the reinforcements could join in.

Hell, you even admitted you encountered an entire new faction and defeated them in 1 turn with auto-resolve. You never even played against a new faction.

Oh, I fought the first Chaos army that showed up, led by Prince Whatshisface Funnytrousers. But swamping chaos soldiers in Waaagh isn't any different to swamping everyone else in Waaagh. So when the zombie Bigbird and the guy with the shiny face showed up I just hit auto resolve.

The parting thought is that, and I know this wont matter, you're faulting a game for you picking on an AI's weak points.

If I was using some kind of devious AI pathfinding exploit or something I'd see your point. But I'm not, I'm just throwing a ton of heavy infantry at the problem until it goes away.

If I could beat a FPS by standing in one place and holding the shoot button down, that wouldn't be an exploit, that would be a poorly designed shooter.

Its like in any other strategy game. The AI will fall for simple tactics that seem unbeatable, because the balance is based on player vs player interactions, where the same tactic against a human will result in a painful loss.

If your game's single player is crippled by the game's mechanics being designed for multiplayer then that's bad design.

Are you saying Total War is like the strategy equivalent of Battlefield where the single player is just a awkward vestigial hanger-on to the main draw of the multiplayer? Because a great deal of effort seems to have done into the campaign of TW:WH.

 

[Elijin]

I'm saying in many RTS games, when I'm doing single player, I like to amass a single unit deathball and use it to squish. I do this from the leisure of my turtle-base of standard defenses stacked on top of each other. The AI rarely counters the unit I'm using, or picks the long range or ability centric units which would cripple my defensive line. I haven't exploited the game, I've just picked on the AI's weak points. Against a human, I would be crushed playing that way.

Total War games are the same. There are things that work in single player standard difficulty (Like just amassing a death ball of infantry) which don't work against a human opponent who sees what you're doing and hard counters it.

And the auto-resolve issues of 'bigger number wins' would be functionally perfect in your testing, because of how you're playing. A smaller varied army played to its strengths and maneuvered well will buck the auto-resolve predictions.

Also the core point still remains that you're playing it for a 4X experience, which is its weaker side, while ignoring the battles which the core game is built around. Which is fine, everyone can play how they like. But then you're complaining about it. It would be like me complaining that in Civilisation the combat is terrible and all this messy empire management is bogging me down.

 

[Zhukov]

I'm saying in many RTS games, when I'm doing single player, I like to amass a single unit deathball and use it to squish. I do this from the leisure of my turtle-base of standard defenses stacked on top of each other. The AI rarely counters the unit I'm using, or picks the long range or ability centric units which would cripple my defensive line. I haven't exploited the game, I've just picked on the AI's weak points.

I realise that AI are going to have weak points, but if the simplest, most mindless strategy I can think of is a weak point then that's a shitty AI. And shitty AI in a game the leans heavily on its AI makes for shitty gameplay.

Imagine if the AI in the new XCOM games could be beaten by charging your soldiers straight forward, ignoring cover and shooting at the closest target. It would be woeful.

Against a human, I would be crushed playing that way.

So fucking what?

I'm playing a single player campaign. "Against a human" is not an argument with any bearing here.

And the auto-resolve issues of 'bigger number wins' would be functionally perfect in your testing, because of how you're playing. A smaller varied army played to its strengths and maneuvered well will buck the auto-resolve predictions.

Nah, I've tried it with different and varied army compositions.

Yes, it's possible to defy a small disadvantage, and I'm sure a better player than me could defy a major disadvantage, but the auto-resolve has proven reliably accurate for the most part.

Also the core point still remains that you're playing it for a 4X experience, which is its weaker side, while ignoring the battles which the core game is built around.

I'd rather not, but if the battles are pointless then I don't see what choice I have.

...

Oh, by the way, I just played a custom battle against AI set to Very Hard. I had a warboss and 19 Black Orcs. I gave the AI a balanced army of high tier units, a lord, a wizard, halberds, greatswords, handgunners, knights, demigriphs, a steam tank, that wizard laser artillery and some mortars.

I still won.

 

[Elijin]

News at 12: RTS AI is dumb and fails against simple tactics. More at 5!

Sounds like you don't like the genre more than anything else. RTS balance is built around humans interacting with humans. RTS games with campaigns that are considered good tend to tick a combination of these boxes:
Is telling a story that distracts you.
Is rigged against you (whether it be straight up health&damage output with resources ignored, or other factors like heavily set up positions from the get go and/or objectives that pressure the players away from ez-mode Ai stomps like time limits or NPC's to be protected.)
...There were going to be more points, but I condensed most of it into 'is rigged against you'.

So yeah RTS AI is terrible, and its a pretty all permeating trend. Single player experiences tend to side step this by heavily scripted and/or cultivated mission design. Total War sucks at this, since the single player is an overworld with some flair, then standard skirmishes for essentially every fight.

I don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry you don't enjoy RTS (yes, total war is RTS with a 4X overlay UI between matches, that's where its meat and potatoes are).

 

[Dragonlayer]

I've fought many a victorious battle against gigantic Orc and Undead hordes that really captured that Warhammer feel of making an epic last stand, so I disagree that there's no point as long as there's more of Them.

That does sound fun.

Maybe it's a faction thing. As Greenskins I prettymuch always outnumber the enemy. Plus I have enough money to build at least three more full armies if I wanted to. (Which would bring me to 12 total armies counting the Waaaghs, which is just ridiculous.)

3. I only play as the glorious Empire so I'm not sure about other races - though that sounds like a very Chaos Warrior mindset, just smash all before you with your ridiculously uber heavy infantry - but combined arms is essential for the Sons of Sigmar. Unless you have a solid block of defensive infantry holding the line, supported by artillery and well-timed flank attacks from cavalry, you *will* fall.

Would those battles not be won with a stack of 20 greatswords?

(Or 19 greatswords and a lord if we're being pedantic.)

Presumably the AI is supposed to have built some mighty alliances to defend against Orc players when they reach that strength, but we all know how effective TW AI can be right?

Heh.

My main challenge was another tribe of Greenskins. Topknots I think they were called. They swallowed up almost every other Greenskin faction and took a long time to grind down. Then a couple of Chaos stacks showed up. The game made a big deal about that. Then I swamped them in Waaaghs and auto-resolved them to death in one turn. It was decidedly anticlimactic. Now I'm spreading out into the Empire and scouting the rest of the map and it looks like those Chaos jokers burned down half the world on their way to me.

Yeah, sounds like an Orc situation, since even at my strongest economic level I could only support two full armies and a half-stack in reserve as Averland (I use minor faction mods to play as the State I painted my tabletop army as). Perhaps the infernal legions of Chaos will be able to challenge your might, as they always spawn with a dozen full armies, albeit spread out so that only three can support each other at a time. Otherwise, you might just have to play on a harder difficulty, which I'm always leery about doing in TW games, as the developers interpret "Hard" as "Just give the AI tons of bonuses and ridiculously gamey behaviour". I remember playing a Hard Prussian campaign in Napoleon: Total War and after 20 turns, every single faction in the game had made peace with Napoleon - you know, the actual threat to Europe - and declared war on me. There was literally only one war going on in the entire world, and it was everybody against Prussia! Same with Shogun 2 - Hard should be challenging, not "Everyone gang up on the player!".

Technically yes, through sheer weight of elite numbers, but then I just have to stand in agreement with the rest of the thread. You could just spam the most expensive you can recruit to win auto-resolve your way to glory, but where's the fun in that? I could just roll up the campaign map with 40 units of Demigryph Knights, but that just looks stupid and lore-breaking. To me, it's more important and ultimately fun to win within the confines of the game universe, not just to win at any cost.

The Topknotz always become a Greenskin superpower - except once, when their battered remnants tried retreating through my land after a Dwarven defeat and I wiped them out once and for all - because all their units are Savage Orcs, which are somehow even stronger then the regular version. Before updates deleted all my progress, the Chaos hordes had invaded the northern reaches of the Empire, laying waste to the coastline and pillaging as far south as the lower Reik: watching all those columns of black, inky smoke rising into the distance and seeing the devastated landscape, pillaged and plundered by bloodthirsty barbarians, it was all incredibly immersive for the coming storm.