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Tiler Kiwi
Feb 26, 2011
confederation at least keeps the AI factions on par with the player's. its a good system.

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Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Deified Data posted:

So what's with me suddenly taking attrition on all unowned land? I don't remember this ever being a thing, especially since it was one of the main reasons I didn't like playing VC. Is it a Skarsnik thing? Is it because I lost my one and only settlement as I fast-tracked to Karak Eight Peaks?

Yeah it seems like you take attrition if you are non horde and own no settlements now. It happens to the AI as well.

Tiler Kiwi
Feb 26, 2011
e: WRONG THREAD whoops

uhhh elves suck!!!

Living Image
Apr 24, 2010

HORSE'S ASS

Fangz posted:

Yeah it seems like you take attrition if you are non horde and own no settlements now. It happens to the AI as well.

Yeah this is true.

Carcer
Aug 7, 2010
Are angrund supposed to get 2 different eight peak related penalties, one for the +50% upkeep and another that gives -5 public order everywhere?

John Charity Spring
Nov 4, 2009

SCREEEEE

Carcer posted:

Are angrund supposed to get 2 different eight peak related penalties, one for the +50% upkeep and another that gives -5 public order everywhere?

Jury is out on whether they're supposed to or not, but it's consistent across all campaigns.

And the good news is that when you take Karak Eight Peaks, you'll never have public order difficulties again. After confederating the main dwarfs too, even freshly conquered settlements with no army garrisoned there were on +10 per turn for me.

Plavski
Feb 1, 2006

I could be a revolutionary

There doesn't appear to be an international number, so do we have any Brits in the thread who can do impressions?

caedwalla
Nov 1, 2007

the eye has it

Deified Data posted:

So what's with me suddenly taking attrition on all unowned land? I don't remember this ever being a thing, especially since it was one of the main reasons I didn't like playing VC. Is it a Skarsnik thing? Is it because I lost my one and only settlement as I fast-tracked to Karak Eight Peaks?

Yeah, having zero settlements causes attrition on all your stacks. Low fightiness could contribute as well.

Jamwad Hilder
Apr 18, 2007

surfin usa

Deified Data posted:

So what's with me suddenly taking attrition on all unowned land? I don't remember this ever being a thing, especially since it was one of the main reasons I didn't like playing VC. Is it a Skarsnik thing? Is it because I lost my one and only settlement as I fast-tracked to Karak Eight Peaks?

Fangz posted:

Yeah it seems like you take attrition if you are non horde and own no settlements now. It happens to the AI as well.

This is correct, but if you use the underway you won't take attrition losses. So you can make your way to some unguarded settlement, pop up, and then take it. You can also do this to sack settlements (for gold or to keep your fightiness up) but because you can't go back into underway after, you'll have to eat some attrition losses. I lost my main settlement as Skarsnik and decided "gently caress it" and underway'd to the mountains in the chaos area and took that over.

Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Jamwad Hilder posted:

This is correct, but if you use the underway you won't take attrition losses. So you can make your way to some unguarded settlement, pop up, and then take it. You can also do this to sack settlements (for gold or to keep your fightiness up) but because you can't go back into underway after, you'll have to eat some attrition losses. I lost my main settlement as Skarsnik and decided "gently caress it" and underway'd to the mountains in the chaos area and took that over.

Wow. That sounds like a bug, but it's also kinda awesome.

Deified Data
Nov 3, 2015


Fun Shoe
So how did you guys handle Skarsnik's campaign? I tried to beeline for Eight Peaks and sacked a few settlements along the way but got pulverized once I got there. Will the penalties from not having it allow me to comfortably settle anywhere else? Also I don't relish going back to the Badlands after having a fresh new starting location.

Rookersh
Aug 19, 2010

Deified Data posted:

So how did you guys handle Skarsnik's campaign? I tried to beeline for Eight Peaks and sacked a few settlements along the way but got pulverized once I got there. Will the penalties from not having it allow me to comfortably settle anywhere else? Also I don't relish going back to the Badlands after having a fresh new starting location.

Conquer the Western Dwarfholds. Raid the Empire, form the Little Waaaagh of the West and slaughter your way home.

His only penalty is a public order decrease, which is great for Greenskins because it means more rebels to build fightiness off of. And once Skarsnik levels up enough, you get his Prodder which gives you enough +public order to ignore it.

Don't go to the Badlands. Conquer your way through the Holds to Zhufbar, razing and raiding humies as you go.

The last thing I took in both my Skarsnik games was Eight Peaks, and it won me the game both times. You don't need Orcs with how good Skarsnik makes Goblins.

Rookersh fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Nov 3, 2016

Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Deified Data posted:

So how did you guys handle Skarsnik's campaign? I tried to beeline for Eight Peaks and sacked a few settlements along the way but got pulverized once I got there. Will the penalties from not having it allow me to comfortably settle anywhere else? Also I don't relish going back to the Badlands after having a fresh new starting location.

Playing on Hard, it wasn't a big issue for me to just slowly expand in that direction, picking on Border Princes along the way. It's just a -2 public order penalty anyway.

By the time I got to the Badlands, Grimgor had consolidated most of it but was in a losing war vs Thorgrim. He confederated with me, giving me 14 new settlements instantly.

Deified Data
Nov 3, 2015


Fun Shoe
Alright I'll consolidate more before I head down.

Carcer
Aug 7, 2010
I found skarsnik's campaign relatively easy but belegar's is kicking my rear end. I can't build up an army to go take eight peaks but trying to build up around the vaults/karak hirn means I'm battling public order from the grudge and the crooked moon mutinous gits keep sending armies that stop me from doing anything productive.

Zephro
Nov 23, 2000

I suppose I could part with one and still be feared...
Does Very Hard in Battle mode actually change the AI's behaviour, or does it just give a bunch of bonuses to stats? The stat bonuses are annoying because they break faction balance - high-leadership greenskins are just dumb, for instance. If so, are there any mods that keep the behaviour change but get rid of the stat buffs?

Deified Data
Nov 3, 2015


Fun Shoe
I'm pretty sure it's just a straight buff, and I keep battle difficulty on normal for the same reason.

Jamwad Hilder
Apr 18, 2007

surfin usa

Carcer posted:

I found skarsnik's campaign relatively easy but belegar's is kicking my rear end. I can't build up an army to go take eight peaks but trying to build up around the vaults/karak hirn means I'm battling public order from the grudge and the crooked moon mutinous gits keep sending armies that stop me from doing anything productive.

You really only need Belegar + ghosts and a decent stack to take Eight Peaks. If you besiege the city they'll attack you on open ground and your stack can beat the garrison + reinforcement army if you know what you're doing, it's a tough battle though.

You should be able to hold the vaults against greenskin armies (rebels or otherwise) with the garrisons from upgraded defenses assuming you actually play the battles, you'll usually lose if you auto-resolve. You could start a second army with a few units of warriors + quarrelers though to help put out fires if you want to.

ZoninSilver
May 30, 2011

Carcer posted:

I found skarsnik's campaign relatively easy but belegar's is kicking my rear end. I can't build up an army to go take eight peaks but trying to build up around the vaults/karak hirn means I'm battling public order from the grudge and the crooked moon mutinous gits keep sending armies that stop me from doing anything productive.

Playing on Hard, I ended up in a situation where I had Belegar with 2 of his starting heroes and a otherwise pretty basic, but full stack, was garrisoned near Eight Peaks while waiting for a secondary army to arrive. That one got munched up by several roaming orc armies eventually, so I decided to suicide attack the peaks as a last hurrah to the campaign, a fitting end to a fool's errand.

Ended up winning it.

Basically, if you have 3-4 ranged units crossbow units of any type, you can pretty easily whittle down the black orcs on the wall to near uselessness, at which point your lord and heroes can start clearing a section of a wall. It's a slow undertaking, but very little in those two armies are actually gonna be able to mop up effectively, and the greenskins really can't bring their number advantage to bear in a siege battle like that. Once I actually got the walls clear enough to get rangers up on it to deal with the archer goblins inside the settlement, the battle was more or less over.

I may have just gotten exceedingly lucky, but remember that in addition to general dwarf hardiness, Belegars bonus means your guys are going to last for a LONG time and can take on greenskins several times their number as long as you don't rush yourself and get surrounded. Take a small part of the wall, make sure as few of your guys outside are in tower range by moving close, and you can probably inch your way to victory.

That fight was possibly one of my favorite siege attacks ever played, so even if it fails it'll probably be an interesting experience regardless!

As for not getting anything productive done back home, I feel your pain. Felt like getting walls basically EVERYWHERE was a requirement, and is what I would recommend getting in order first. Your economy is never gonna let you sustain teching up to primarily longbeards anyway pre-taking Eight Peaks, so get a full stack of your basic troops, grab what you can near your starting position and fortify those positions, then beeline towards Eight Peaks, maybe taking and holing up in the nearby settlement I forgot the name of while getting back to full strength.

Dongattack
Dec 20, 2006

by Cyrano4747
Does anyone know of a lightweight mod that buffs the Empire a bit? I don't want any new units or sweeping changes, hell i don't even want to play as the Empire, but i just realized that since playing this game since release i have never had a meaningful interaction with them. In the last game they were wiped out before turn 100 and it was kinda gross since it was my first proper VC campaign (loving the new hero) and they were supposed to be my big bad. But i never ever got to interact with them.

So i just want SOMETHING to enable the Empire AI to survive and be a challenge.

Triskelli
Sep 27, 2011

I AM A SKELETON
WITH VERY HIGH
STANDARDS


Yeah the secret to Dwarfs is that they are custom-tailored to tunnel fighting and city fighting, and you can handily win almost any siege with even the most basic infantry and a few pieces of artillery.

Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

anyone got any tips for a greenskin economy? i get that you need to keep sacking, but i can't keep up the tempo. eventually places get more than 1 turn apart and i go bankrupt, i tried confederating but that just lead to more fronts, with armies that can't make back their upkeep, also while the rebellions are nice for waaghs they tend to slowly wear down my armies

Nanomashoes
Aug 18, 2012

Davincie posted:

anyone got any tips for a greenskin economy? i get that you need to keep sacking, but i can't keep up the tempo. eventually places get more than 1 turn apart and i go bankrupt, i tried confederating but that just lead to more fronts, with armies that can't make back their upkeep, also while the rebellions are nice for waaghs they tend to slowly wear down my armies

Umm, build piles of shiny things.

Gejnor
Mar 14, 2005

Fun Shoe

Dongattack posted:

Does anyone know of a lightweight mod that buffs the Empire a bit? I don't want any new units or sweeping changes, hell i don't even want to play as the Empire, but i just realized that since playing this game since release i have never had a meaningful interaction with them. In the last game they were wiped out before turn 100 and it was kinda gross since it was my first proper VC campaign (loving the new hero) and they were supposed to be my big bad. But i never ever got to interact with them.

So i just want SOMETHING to enable the Empire AI to survive and be a challenge.

Maybe not exactly what you're looking for but you could try my mod that raises most (skarsnik can't be brought up to tier 4 sadly, only tier 3) playable factions up to tier 4 at the start. Ive personally noticed as a VC player that the Empire AI benefits a lot by having a tier 4 altdorf right away and that they actually start coming to my lands pretty fast.

Heres a link though steam is slow as gently caress right now, DDOS'd maybe?
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=710063475

brocretin
Nov 15, 2012

yo yo yo i loves virgins

Nanomashoes posted:

Umm, build piles of shiny things.

Yeah, this pretty much. You need that baseline of income to pay for your army so you can make money off sacking and raiding.

ChickenWing
Jul 22, 2010

:v:

Davincie posted:

anyone got any tips for a greenskin economy? i get that you need to keep sacking, but i can't keep up the tempo. eventually places get more than 1 turn apart and i go bankrupt, i tried confederating but that just lead to more fronts, with armies that can't make back their upkeep, also while the rebellions are nice for waaghs they tend to slowly wear down my armies

Piles of Shiny Things in every single settlement

No joke

Also make sure you're consolidating armies so that unit healing maintenance isn't crippling your economy. I would imagine that, especially out of super-high-replenishment-zones, letting two units replenish costs more than merging them and building a new one.

Also yeah sack everything

Dongattack
Dec 20, 2006

by Cyrano4747

Gejnor posted:

Maybe not exactly what you're looking for but you could try my mod that raises most (skarsnik can't be brought up to tier 4 sadly, only tier 3) playable factions up to tier 4 at the start. Ive personally noticed as a VC player that the Empire AI benefits a lot by having a tier 4 altdorf right away and that they actually start coming to my lands pretty fast.

Heres a link though steam is slow as gently caress right now, DDOS'd maybe?
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=710063475

Thanks! I'll try it the next game i play. FWIW steam is broken for me too.

Dandywalken
Feb 11, 2014

brocretin posted:

Yeah, this pretty much. You need that baseline of income to pay for your army so you can make money off sacking and raiding.

And be sure to get the Gem mines and equivalent in Dwarven settlements you capture!

Arcsquad12 posted:


How is one supposed to use boar cavalry? The only thing that isn't listed as "high threat" are low tier archers. Armor piercing doesn't help them that much because as shock cavalry they stink in extended combat where AP counts a lot, and they feel way too long and expensive to obtain to be worth it especially now that squigs are so effective at disrupting formations

Im finding Squigs have kind of obsoleted them, honestly :( I think they're meant to engage cavalry ideally, but their slow speed means they arent so hot at that.

Would a speed increase for them be gamebreaking, I wonder? I know OnG are already in a great place in terms of competitiveness MP-wise.

Dandywalken fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Nov 3, 2016

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
It's much easier to do shiny piles with skarsnik due to his lesser need for military buildings.

How is one supposed to use boar cavalry? The only thing that isn't listed as "high threat" are low tier archers. Armor piercing doesn't help them that much because as shock cavalry they stink in extended combat where AP counts a lot, and they feel way too long and expensive to obtain to be worth it especially now that squigs are so effective at disrupting formations

Decus
Feb 24, 2013

Zephro posted:

Does Very Hard in Battle mode actually change the AI's behaviour, or does it just give a bunch of bonuses to stats? The stat bonuses are annoying because they break faction balance - high-leadership greenskins are just dumb, for instance. If so, are there any mods that keep the behaviour change but get rid of the stat buffs?

Nobody knows whether battle difficulty alters AI but I'd have to say it does in the same way that campaign difficulty alters AI alongside the stat buffs. There's no way to mod out the stat bonuses though since they're not in the tables. Also, any additional AI they get is likely heavily linked to them having the bonuses to the extent that even if you could mod them out the result would be a dumber AI. I doubt they wrote an AI that's constantly considering and comparing exact stats of units versus lazily comparing smaller tables of general match-ups that might look different for each difficulty.

Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Arcsquad12 posted:

It's much easier to do shiny piles with skarsnik due to his lesser need for military buildings.

How is one supposed to use boar cavalry? The only thing that isn't listed as "high threat" are low tier archers. Armor piercing doesn't help them that much because as shock cavalry they stink in extended combat where AP counts a lot, and they feel way too long and expensive to obtain to be worth it especially now that squigs are so effective at disrupting formations

I seem to recall that they are a very cost effective counter to heavy cavalry.

Damienz
Sep 4, 2012

The latest DLC's really switched things up in the campaign:

Started a new dwarf campaign and the Chaos-invasion was a real anti-climax: Kislev, Karak Hirn and Skarsnik (!) stomped all their armies - I only had to mop up Archaon's sorry excuse for a halfstack.
Think this is the first time I've seen Kislev survive the invasion and they're going strong as well (strength rank 3), going to be interesting to see how the "Age of Peace" plays out.

brocretin
Nov 15, 2012

yo yo yo i loves virgins

I get really sad whenever I see a successful Kislev. They need their own roster :(

Rygar201
Jan 26, 2011
I AM A TERRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT.

Please Condescend to me like this again.

Oh yeah condescend to me ALL DAY condescend daddy.


Is there a mod today Make Chaos Great Again by any chance? The invasion is so lame now

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?

Rygar201 posted:

Is there a mod today Make Chaos Great Again by any chance? The invasion is so lame now

Preferably a mod that would increase chaos's threat level without cheesing their stacks full of giants and hellcannons. I prefer chaos to be tough but balanced, but when archaeon appears with eight giants and seven hellcannons it's just annoying

Decus
Feb 24, 2013

Arcsquad12 posted:

Preferably a mod that would increase chaos's threat level without cheesing their stacks full of giants and hellcannons. I prefer chaos to be tough but balanced, but when archaeon appears with eight giants and seven hellcannons it's just annoying

It's all in chaos_invasion.lua and very easy to edit. Just increase the number of stacks that spawn for your desired difficulty level and the number of respawns allotted.

code:
-- the number of hordes we want the Chaos faction to have when spawning a new wave
-- mid game | late game
-- easy, normal, hard, very hard, legendary
ci_max_num_hordes = {{3, 3, 4, 5, 6}, {5, 5, 6, 7, 8}};

-- the area in which it is valid to spawn hordes (currently a rectangle in the Chaos Wastes region)
-- min x, max x, min y, max y
ci_spawn_area = {766, 780, 612, 625};
ci_norsca_spawn_area = {474, 518, 160, 186};

-- range of units to spawn a new horde with (min, max)
-- mid game | late game
ci_horde_size = {{5, 9},{17,19}};

-- amount of free XP to give agents and armies when spawning
-- agents | mid game | late game
-- rank 2, 3, 4 | rank 7, 8, 9 | rank 20, 21, 22
ci_character_xp = {{900, 1900, 3000},{6890, 8370, 9940},{32360, 34800, 37300}};

-- turn number to shuffle the AI personalities if the Chaos faction is under player control
ci_player_chaos_personality_shuffle_turn = 30;

-- number of times to spawn additional waves before cancelling during late game event
-- easy, normal, hard, very hard, legendary
ci_num_spawn_waves_late_game = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4};

edit those parts as desired.

fnordcircle
Jul 7, 2004

PTUI
In 2 out of my last 5 campaigns Chaos ran roughshod over Empire and VC. In the other 3 they didn't do much.

I'm actually much happier with those odds than the way it was before. Playing 'bide my time swatting flies until Chaos comes in and does it for me' wasn't too much fun.

Trujillo
Jul 10, 2007
Chaos did okay in this legendary Crooked Moon campaign I just finished, but maybe that's because I wasn't fighting them at all until they reached me.



They cleared out most of the empire and half of the vampire counts. They probably could've kept razing indefinitely if they didn't send everything at me at one point. One thing I noticed is that they didn't get any respawning waves after Archaeon showed up. Did they remove that? I tried to avoid wiping them out till they could get another wave but they wanted to die.

Deified Data
Nov 3, 2015


Fun Shoe

fnordcircle posted:

In 2 out of my last 5 campaigns Chaos ran roughshod over Empire and VC. In the other 3 they didn't do much.

I'm actually much happier with those odds than the way it was before. Playing 'bide my time swatting flies until Chaos comes in and does it for me' wasn't too much fun.

This was the case for my last two campaigns (Beastmen and Greenskins, normal and VH respectively) too, but this was probably a patch or two ago and I'm not sure if anything's changed. It seems like Chaos will almost always either wither on the vine and get wiped before you even encounter them or curbstomp the entire continent singlehanded. I always wonder what sort of thing determines their momentum.

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fnordcircle
Jul 7, 2004

PTUI

Trujillo posted:


They cleared out most of the empire and half of the vampire counts. They probably could've kept razing indefinitely if they didn't send everything at me at one point. One thing I noticed is that they didn't get any respawning waves after Archaeon showed up. Did they remove that? I tried to avoid wiping them out till they could get another wave but they wanted to die.

I killed Archaeon like 5 times in my last campaign but he keeps coming back until you wipe out all stacks. At least that's what I've inferred is the mechanic. Similar to how if you kill any LL he'll eventually pop up in charge of another army. Which I actually really dislike. Kill Grimgor's stack. 5 turns later another stack that's sieging me gets Grimgor as the leader suddenly....

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