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Wafflecopper posted:I know this is old news, but holy gently caress why is the encyclopedia so loving bad? Why can't I mouse over traits like Forest Stalker and Master Ambusher to see what they actually do? It's loving 2016 CA, and you've been making games since 2000. That's sixteen years as a professional video game developing company. This poo poo is UI 101, how the gently caress do you not know how to do this by now? I have zero experience designing UIs and I could do a better job. Holy loving poo poo fire the drooling retards you have designing this crap and hire someone who has some idea what the gently caress they are doing. Because all the pages are online instead of local.
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Dec 9, 2016 14:12
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dumb and kinda scared posted:I assume you build sacrifical pits everywhere? Whats your advice for early welf GC, specifically 2 things: Most of them are Sacifical Pits yeah, not all though! 1.In my game i have 2 WE settlements, and Durthu has the other 2, we are military allies and its been going great thus far. This is on Very Hard campaign/Normal battles. 2.Wood Elves get almost the same kind of numbers Greenskins get when they win battles AND sacking/razing (ive seen 20k gold for that!) , so you can see some nice income from that, the alternative is to take over all Wood Elf settlements and building the income buildings as mentioned. Also there are some tooltip errors going on, both the techtree and the Starlight Craftsmens says "+20% Armour" but infact its +20 armour flat, i really hope its just a tooltip error anyways and not the intended effect as the Wood Elves really do need that extra armour to be special. Another is that the first tech says +10% Ward Save in Forest Battles and shows the Golden DR against all damage types, but its only physical though that too is appreciated. Gejnor fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Dec 9, 2016 14:42
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Gotta say I'm a little disappointed in the wood elf DLC so far, although I've only really tried an Orion archer focussed grand campaign. Wood Elf archers kinda suck, or at least have too many weaknesses to make them strong despite their decent range and mobility, small tweaks like giving them ~50% more base ammo would help a lot but still make them get their face pushed in by most other ranged forces, even with all the ammo talents I'm still running out before the end of any even battle. I also wouldn't be surprised if this has something to do with CA getting rid of accuracy as a skirmisher stat after Shogun 2, so a wood elf archer has better range and damage but the same chance to hit as a goblin (thus why goblin archer spam DESTROYS wood elf archer armies). They're SO fragile too, the high fragility/high morale army is an interesting new addition to the rosters but even Skarsnik Goblins for example can take them on head to head which feels weird for an "elite" army. I assume this probably has to do with how TW stats work, where high skill/low armour units just dont fare as well as low skill/high armour and its compounded by their tiny unit sizes. Then there's units like great eagles and hawks which just kind of don't do their jobs? Hawk Riders are hilariously bad at range and in melee. Then there's little things like you having to go "okay I know I'm not researching tech, i can't afford the amber" every turn and neither treeman nor elfboy starting with an easy enemy to bash first or second turn like practically every other faction. To me, beastmen have been the best faction released so far, fun and crazy campaign bonuses and gameplay, focussed playstyle, nearly every unit having a purpose it is good at, so its a shame wood elves don't get anything on the level of perma-ambushing armies, minotaurs or the insane gorebull army buffs (or, hell, the goblin BB insane buffs that turn lovely goblins into poisonous woodchippers). e: To be a bit positive though some of the 360 no scope running stealth archers are fun and the archer hero owns. Like I say I havent tried out the treepeople that much so maybe they're good? Communist Thoughts fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Dec 9, 2016 14:57
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Found a description of the offices for the Wood Elves: Warden of the Wildwood - Requires Wildwood Waystones While this lord is in office they give +5 public order to the local province, they also provide a 15% construction cost reduction to all buildings in the local region. And finally they give +10 melee attack to Wildwood Rangers in the Lord's army. The Wildwood Waystones building also provides a 10% research rate bonus factionwide. Herald of the Hunter - Requires The Wild Heath While this lord is in office the upkeep and recruitment cost of Wild Riders is reduced by 10% in the lord's army. The lord's army also gains 20% campaign movement range. Finally this lord will be chosen to go on the Wild Hunt which when it occurs will give a large buff to this lord's army. Providing +20% campaign movement range, +15 charge bonus to the lord's army, +10 leadership to the lord's army, a 20% reduction in upkeep cost in the lord's army, a 100% increase to income from razing settlements, and a 15% increase to weapon strength of melee infantry units in the lord's army. The Trickster's Masque - Requires Wardancer Feast Halls While a lord is in office trade with non-Wood Elf factions is enabled. Wardancer units in the lord's army again 10% weapon strength, and Wardancer units gain +1 unit experience when recruited into the lord's army. The Wardancer Feast Halls give a +2 unit experience to Wardancer recruits factionwide making this effectively a +3 bonus. Starlight Craftsman - Requires Starlight Forge While this lord is in office all Eternal Guard units in the Lord's army gain 20% armour. There is also a factionwide bonus of +10% tradable resources produced and a local region bonus of +10% income from all buildings. The Starlight Forge building itself also gives a 5% construction cost reduction factionwide.
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Dec 9, 2016 15:11
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Durthu has his own unique offices. 
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Dec 9, 2016 15:18
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Just finished it, Very Hard. First campaign tried as Orion. That went ok, but around midway I realized I was hosed. He's a strong hero, but he doesn't fully make up for the weaknesses of the race which is a big issue. The Elves part of the DLC is just not strong enough even with his buffs to go 1v1 with much of anything unless you micro every battle like mad. It's just not a fun way of playing. Restarted as Durthu, went full alliances path. Worked out much better. I spent the better part of the games beginning slaughtering the Wood Elves and conquering Athel Loren, before moving and taking out the various Dwarf Holds/Greenskins in the mountains. Treekin can hold out against pretty much everything, and massed Treekin + Elf support actually wins you battles. Between fighting the Beastmen tribes and the diplomatic buffs, it's really easy to get the Empire/Brettonia to fully ally with you, which helped with the rest. I eventually allied with the Dwarfs main faction after conquering my way through the western Dwarf Holds, which gave me the Amber I needed to finish the game. Interesting faction, kind of flawed presentation. You shouldn't be conquering anything honestly, you get more then enough Amber from alliances and it's really easy to ally with everyone thanks to the Diplomatic buffs, even on Very Hard. You also don't need to conquer anything to win the game as the WElves, you just need to get enough Amber to fully build up the tree, then win the final fight. I basically spent a good amount of time loving the other Elf factions over because gently caress Elves, before allying with my neighbors enough to go fight the Beastmen for them. That combined with my conquest of the Dwarf Holds got me the Amber I needed to win the game. 90% of my game was just me playing Mercenary Angry Tree, running through my allies lands killing Beastmen while they sat in their forts and pissed about. Biggest problem I had with it is the fundamental setup is flawed. Full elf army with supporting trees is a bad army. Full tree army with supporting elves works much better. The amount of treekin you need to be competitive in lategame battles is 3-4 times more then the amount of specialist elves you need.
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Dec 9, 2016 15:38
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Kanos posted:Durthu has his own unique offices. They are almost exactly the same as the post above this except tree flavored instead of elf. So I started with the Grand Campaign as Durthu. You have no idea how happy I am that the elf units cost amber thing only applies to the higher tiered ones and that I can still get basic spears/bows/wild riders without spending amber. So far I've taken out Karak Norn and the Crooked Moonz, but I'm thinking about turning around and setting my sights on the other wood elf holdings, because man elf economic income is kind of not great early and you're kind of hard pressed to get it going in a way to field more than one army before ToA upgrades. I do really like the welf basic melee infantry though. Your lords melee red line contains the elf equivalent of Honest Steel but better because it applies to all units and not just basic swords/spears/halberds like empire. You can be rocking some hellish megabuffs between that and research by midgame. As has been said upstream: Hawks are kind of not great, but that's fine because Wild Riders are pretty amazing and don't cost amber for either welf faction. Waystalkers are great. The tree hero is pretty great and winds up with the greatest hits out of both shadow and life but is also tougher than spell singers at the cost of not getting Grounding. I could see Bright wizards really finding a niche against welves because of the tree people's rampant weakness to fire.
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Dec 9, 2016 15:55
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Its weird when im the guy who thinks the faction is fine as is, or rather, id love to see more ammo on elves and maybe have their arrows ignore trees but thats about it.
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Dec 9, 2016 15:59
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Asehujiko posted:Going full elf for the Spear fight was brutal. I got a whole bunch of rangers to hold the slopes and a fuckton of waywatchers up top. 20 seconds is nowhere near enough to do anything but maybe launch an arrow of kurnous at the wall of invincible chaos spawn and my melee dudes couldn't hold their positions long enough so what I ended up doing was bury morghur under a giant pile of arrow shafts regardless of whether he had his shield up or not, I don't think it's doable without getting some form of tree duders on difficulties above normal. I was able to pull it off on Very Hard after a few tries despite having 0 trees. I had 4 Eternal Guard with Shields and 2 wardancers holding one of the chokepoints while my 7 archer units sat on the ridge above. Orion, a Life Wizard, and a Sisters of the Thorn sat behind my infantry line providing healing/buffs or in Orion's case dropping his abilities onto the massed up beastmen. I had a couple Wild Riders sitting to the side picking off any flankers until the enemy stopped spawning at which point they took the long route and slammed into the rear of the enemy. Whenever the shield went down I would have all my missile units focus fire on a chaos spawn and just ignored Morghur until the end.
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Dec 9, 2016 16:02
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I did fine with Orion after I got the hang of it. Didn't use trees at all because they look stupid and I didn't want to. I didn't really conquer anything outside of the forest and got my amber via alliances and the odd outpost here and there. All my outposts had that building that gives you factionwide boosts to damage and armor (I think? might be another stat). Once you have a few of them it's a nice bonus. The hardest part of the game for me was the beginning. Conquering the other elf factions can be tough, especially when beastmen and not-French guys like to gun for the oak or kings glade if you wander too far away. It took me the better part of the first 60 turns to accomplish that. After I controlled the whole forest it was pretty easy to just form alliances for amber and wander around killing whoever I felt like until I eventually won.
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Dec 9, 2016 16:10
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Also am i going crazy or is one of the female glade lord VA's Joey Dalton?
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Dec 9, 2016 16:10
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Alright, fast-moving crazy person hick elves controlled by sinister time forests is enough to get me to give this another go.
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Dec 9, 2016 16:11
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On normal, I didn't bother conquering the other Wood Elves as Durthu. I marched my initial stack up into the mountains and hit Grimhold first. Then when Skarsnik moved out to hit Karak Norn, I declared on him and busted up his settlement. Once he finished taking Karak Norn, I surrounded him and sieged him down. That made the whole province relatively secure, since the Empire factions next door can't conquer them and gave me a nice little buffer. I spent the next while building up alliances with some of the Empire provinces and trying to keep them alive to keep the Amber flowing. It's a different campaign style than I'm used to, especially since I didn't have the income to support more than one stack, so it was just Durthu playing whack-a-mole. I lost 1 territory to a wandering Beastman herd before WIssenland, bros that they are, rolled up and obliterated the stack while Durthu was sieging down some Brettonians who pissed off my allies. Once I got the Oak of Ages up to level 3, all the other Wood Elves pretty much immediately confederated with me, but I suspect that wouldn't be as easy on higher difficulties. With such tight territory, you don't really need multiple recruitment buildings, so my income increased quite a bit, but I kinda wish that each province had some incentive to recruit certain units to specialize. The techs you get that buff your diplomacy are not as crazy as I initially thought, since you start with a -30 aversion penalty with everyone who isn't an elf. I'm thinking now I'm going to swing West-southwest and start conquering some of the Southern Brettonians and Eastalia to give myself a rump state where I don't have to worry too much about invading armies and can spam the factionwide buff buildings instead of putting waystones everywhere for their increased garrison, plus all that sweet port income.
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Dec 9, 2016 16:16
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Durthu's campaign start seems much easier than Orion's, but also Orion's start is easier if Carcassonne decides not to immediately build extra fortifications in their capital. If they do then good luck taking that bastard before turn 35 or so, honestly.
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Dec 9, 2016 16:22
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John Charity Spring posted:Durthu's campaign start seems much easier than Orion's, but also Orion's start is easier if Carcassonne decides not to immediately build extra fortifications in their capital. If they do then good luck taking that bastard before turn 35 or so, honestly. No need to go that way. Skarsnik/Norn will always kill themselves enough you can easily go East and take the Mountains down to Grimhold without much fuss. Once that's conquered, go back and claim Athel Loren, and kill off the various Beastmen that roam about. By this point you've got a massive pool of Amber/resources, and can choose your next moves. Hitting Estonia/Tilea/Angrund/Border Princes is simple and gets your economy moving, going through Brett is a struggle and gets you next to nothing. Once I got both Diplomatic boosts, I was able to ally with both Brett and the Empire near immediately, even before Chaos showed up just from fighting all the Beastmen/Greenskins/killing the Wood Elves. Then it was just a matter of bribing the Dwarfs a few times before I allied them and got their Amber, which let me win the game. Chaos was running amok through the Empire, but that wasn't -my- problem.
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Dec 9, 2016 16:29
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One thing that makes taking settlements easy as Durthu is that every single tree unit causes fear. Gobbos will rout super-quick when faced with a line of pissed-off wood spirits backed up by even more giant wood spirits bludgeoning their friends to death. I think the autoresolve for Skarsnik's province showed me at a slight disadvantage, but I rolled them over super-easily.
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Dec 9, 2016 16:30
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So this marks the third time they've changed the Grunburg map. It seems every expansion has the side effect of changing Reikland's geography. Those poor people.
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Dec 9, 2016 16:32
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Ok, I'm having fun with the welves but u haven't fully worked out the mechanics yet. In order to get more buildings than just the starting province I need to conquer or confederate my welf neighbours? I havent entry seen a confederate option yet is it an event? I take it the non forest regions can only support one building which I either choose for income, buff or garrison size? Do the main forest province defense buildings buff the non forest provinces or are they always super squishy?
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Dec 9, 2016 17:07
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John Charity Spring posted:Durthu's campaign start seems much easier than Orion's, but also Orion's start is easier if Carcassonne decides not to immediately build extra fortifications in their capital. If they do then good luck taking that bastard before turn 35 or so, honestly. My Orion start strategy: Ignore the Carcassonne castle, go take over their small village on the coast. Make peace with Carcassonne. Head south and take out the Estalian coastal villages. If you can bait Estalia out of their capital, crush them and take it, otherwise don't bother. Make peace with Estalia if applicable. Hop across the water to Tilea, repeat the same pattern. If Angrund is getting their poo poo kicked in, conquer any places they lost and then beat up Skarsnik a bit. If not, hop back into Athel Loren and raise a second army. Assign your second army the Wild Hunt office and have them rampage across Bretonnia for a while. You should be strong enough to not care about castles any more. Tip for conquering bretonnia: the outpost building with +replenishment gives you a garrison that can beat most bretonnian armies at this stage of the game. Once you are more secure you can swap out for better buildings, but +replenishment makes a good front line. Orion can now attack Border Princes, mountains (whether held by dwarf or greenskin) or Empire, or just crush any Beastmen who pop back up until you have a chance to confederate Durthu and the others. End result: SO MANY ports, a lot of Amber, and at least two full stacks of asskickers Also: the -4 holdout time tech is fantastic. You can make settlements suffer attrition after 2-4 turns in most cases, which is a good deal for the welfs.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:11
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I am a little confused why the Wood Elves don't get a starting target to beat up like most of the other factions. IIRC Angrund or Crooked Moon have the same issue but then again those guys don't really have to rush: Skarsnik needs to recruit his gobbo horde and Belegar will generally build up a giant wall of dwarf warriors for his quarrelers. Meanwhile wood elves need to beat down Carcassone and the Beastmen ASAP or else deal with the Oak of Ages getting owned every 10 turns, so Orion or Durthu really need the early levels.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:33
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numptyboy posted:Ok, I'm having fun with the welves but u haven't fully worked out the mechanics yet. Yes, the "proper" Wood Elf provinces are the ones in Athel Loren, so you need to take them over somehow to get the full range of stuff. You can confederate once the Oak is T3 or above. Yeah, exactly. Non forest provinces are always squishy. Gejnor posted:Also am i going crazy or is one of the female glade lord VA's Joey Dalton? I had no idea that she'd parlayed her blog into a job with CA but it's cool to see she's doing well.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:44
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SunAndSpring posted:I am a little confused why the Wood Elves don't get a starting target to beat up like most of the other factions. IIRC Angrund or Crooked Moon have the same issue but then again those guys don't really have to rush: Skarsnik needs to recruit his gobbo horde and Belegar will generally build up a giant wall of dwarf warriors for his quarrelers. Meanwhile wood elves need to beat down Carcassone and the Beastmen ASAP or else deal with the Oak of Ages getting owned every 10 turns, so Orion or Durthu really need the early levels. I don't see why wood elves need to go anywhere in a rush tbh.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:49
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It's nice thar Glade Lords can be female. Now both genders of elves can be racist isolationist kidnappers. Is there any scuttlebutt if we'll see Ariel for the grand campaign?
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Dec 9, 2016 17:51
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Wood elves are absolutely as amazing I had hoped they would be, Eternal Guard front rank backed by some skirmish enabled glade guard are not to be sniffed at. It was deeply satisfying to face down two units of Minotaurs with basic infantry and just watch them melt as they hit melee distance. Gors on the other hand need wardancers to deal with them and the elves do need to be backed up by their command units. Life Spellsinger feels vital for dealing with the low HP pool. Wild riders are rad, they have the sort of impact light cavalry had in say, Napoleon: Total War. Where if they hit the back line of a lightly armoured unit they will just wreck them. I haven't used many of the later tier units, eagles seem underwhelming (they are legit one of the best flying units in the tabletop), though eagle riders melt against ranged units they are a solid harrasser if you keep them away from enemy ranged. Looking forward to be disappointed by the Forest Dragon, but if I can get a glade lord with a bow on one of those babies I'll be happy enough.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:53
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Hernia The Hunter posted:I haven't used many of the later tier units, eagles seem underwhelming (they are legit one of the best flying units in the tabletop), though eagle riders melt against ranged units they are a solid harrasser if you keep them away from enemy ranged. Looking forward to be disappointed by the Forest Dragon, but if I can get a glade lord with a bow on one of those babies I'll be happy enough. They ride hawks, not eagles!  My use of them have seen them as this: meh for the ranged part, its pitiful damage especially on heavily armoured targets. Surprisingly they do AP melee damage, pretty high AP damage as well (45-46), and they get an astounding 56 charge bonus (not sure if thats by default but thats what mine had) so they can actually act quite well like a light melee cav that can rear-charge really damned well but they absolutely cannot stay stuck in or they will melt.
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Dec 9, 2016 18:22
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Skooled! Yeah I've toggle charged them a bit and had good results, but I'll need to try them on more targets, was using them to cut off the mortar rounds fallin on all my beautiful welfs
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Dec 9, 2016 18:42
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I think if they changed anything about welf archers it should be the cost. If their utility was enhanced through being more cost effective then they'd be more effective key the course of the campaign. That and /or crank up the bonuses for firing out of forests, which makes them more terrain dependent.
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Dec 9, 2016 18:59
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To be frank I think the best way to use elves is to quickly rout units with massed arrow fire, then have your Wild Riders chase them down and kill them before they return. Wild Riders are really fast so you can nearly always hunt down fleeing ground units and end their lives in droves.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:00
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KnoxZone posted:I was able to pull it off on Very Hard after a few tries despite having 0 trees. I had 4 Eternal Guard with Shields and 2 wardancers holding one of the chokepoints while my 7 archer units sat on the ridge above. Orion, a Life Wizard, and a Sisters of the Thorn sat behind my infantry line providing healing/buffs or in Orion's case dropping his abilities onto the massed up beastmen. I had a couple Wild Riders sitting to the side picking off any flankers until the enemy stopped spawning at which point they took the long route and slammed into the rear of the enemy. Whenever the shield went down I would have all my missile units focus fire on a chaos spawn and just ignored Morghur until the end.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:07
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Wood Elves are fun... For me to poo poo on.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:27
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Apparently enough people are having trouble grokking the Wood Elves that CA has put out some tips. E: of special note is that all the big-name capitals (Couronne, Marienburg, Reikland, etc) give a unique building that boosts income in all provinces by 10%, for a stacking total of 90% if you get your leafy mitts on all nine. Triskelli fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Dec 9, 2016 19:28
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How's the treeman portion of the wood elf army? just a small fraction of the various elf types or do they have a wide selection of different sized angry trees?
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Dec 9, 2016 19:32
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:How's the treeman portion of the wood elf army? just a small fraction of the various elf types or do they have a wide selection of different sized angry trees? Monsters and animals get included with them so the treeman portion is like 30-40% of the total units with the other 60-70% elves.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:37
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Nanomashoes posted:Monsters and animals get included with them so the treeman portion is like 30-40% of the total units with the other 60-70% elves. Also keep in mind with Druthu you can still pick up your basic elven spear/archers infantry, elf heroes, and wild/eagle riders without paying Amber. The Amber costs only kick in for wardancers and Tier 3+ elven units.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:42
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Ammanas posted:So this is cool. Steam won't download the 5gb DLC because the 29gb I have free on my SSD is insufficient. Because steam or CA decides the way to release patches and DLC is to copy the entire goddamn game temporarily or something. How the gently caress do I download this poo poo without uninstalling the game I'm trying to update Zephro fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Dec 9, 2016 19:55
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I've been trying an army composition that basically foregoes any kind of line units, and it's actually working out decently well. It's basically a quarter each wardancers/wildwood rangers, glade riders, wild hunt, and deepwood scouts/glade guard. The glade riders do most of the work early on, leading the enemy on a wild kiting goose-chase while the rest of the army hides out in some trees somewhere. Once they've whittled down some priority targets they lead the enemy back to the rest of the army, ideally strung out some. Then foot archers soften up whatever's first with a few volleys, and then all the wardancers and wild riders charge into the mess from one flank. Ideally they break whatever they encounter in the span of a few seconds each and roll up the whole enemy line from one end to the other. Meanwhile the glade riders take care of the enemy back line in melee, and the archers kite a part of the enemy infantry away until it's their turn to get stuck into the wardancer blender. It's pretty micro-intensive, but it actually works pretty well and is really satisfying and stylish when it works out. That said, I've only really tried it against humans and beastmen so far, against dwarves or chaos the whole thing might just be stonewalled hard. On that note, glade riders have really surprised me with how much use I'm getting out of them. They're like pistoliers except better in every way, particularly in melee, and the poison upgrade keeps them relevant for a long time. Kind of feels like the good old days of playing Parthia in Rome II.
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Dec 9, 2016 20:27
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DeathSandwich posted:Also keep in mind with Druthu you can still pick up your basic elven spear/archers infantry, elf heroes, and wild/eagle riders without paying Amber. The Amber costs only kick in for wardancers and Tier 3+ elven units. If it wasn't for wardancers costing amber, I'd say the treeman start would unambiguously be the better one. Deepwood Rangers and Waywatchers are nice, but ultimately don't really fill a unique role in the list. Asrai spear wardancers can perform a similar role to the rangers, and so long as you're not needing vanguard deployment then glade guard with starfire shafts can perform similarly to waywatchers. In contrast all the fliers, nonsensically including hawk riders, cost amber for elven start.
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Dec 9, 2016 20:38
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So the mini-campaign is really easy so long as you do it right and aren't playing on a ridiculously high difficulty to give the AI a ton of unfair bonuses. Here's a rough guide for anyone who needs help. The Bulk of the Campaign: Don't build up the Oak at first. Building up the Oak increases the difficulty of the Beastmen invasions. This mini-campaign is neat because it's actually the grand strategy equivalent of a survival mode. Don't up the difficulty until you can handle it. Play as Orion and not Durthu since Durthu is the hard mode of this scenario due to being farther away from the Oak and on the forest's edge. Make friends with all of your elven nations except two of them which you plan to conquer later. The two conquerable ones you want to take over to provide you with more cash for troops and kickass building upgrades. This means getting military alliances and playing the politics game, so if you get the chance murder beastmen and always release elven prisoners. Ditto for seeding and no sacking unless you somehow gently caress up and end up on a campaign outside the forest against the humans, orks, or undead of Bretonnia. Don't go campaigning outside the forest. Remember the lore for Wood Elves. It actually plays to the strengths of this scenario. Wood Elves are isolationist dickheads that only leave the forest when it's endangered or they need something. Right now you need to be building up a political atmosphere of adoration towards your leader within the forest and at least two stacks of heavily trained troops for when the shitstorm inevitably occurs. Use the office that gives extra XP to troops per turn for the latter. Ignore any pleas for help or trust outside the forest. The outside is your enemy and (provided you manage to get all but a few of the elven nations on your side) nothing more than prey to give you more Amber and faction wide buffs later on. Try to make it so that the nations you take over are the "inner" nations of the forest. Preferably that'll be the provinces to the north-east and south-east of your starting province since you can chain grape vine buildings and buff buildings for insane cash. Let other nations bordering you handle border defense and expansion at first. Odds are they won't get too far before the Beastmen show up and force them to consolidate their gains. Plus there's a lot of space to conquer. Get the tech to give extra damage and combat ability when fighting against Beastmen ASAP. That thing will save your life later on. Also, consider the army buffs in each skill line. Wood Elves are beefy as gently caress if buffed appropriately. Ignore the Beastmen unless they get close to the Oak. When the Beastmen show up in force and rush the tree give your allies focused targets according to which side of the forest both sides are on. The goal here is to make the Beastmen run a gauntlet of pissed off NPC elves so that they're not only depleted when they reach you but have an endless army of pissed off wood elves on their tail when they reach it. This will almost always force them to break up out of the mega-horde they move to form into groups or go solo, which makes it far easier to pick them off. Once the Beastmen LL is dead you can begin the process of expansion. Try to focus your attentions outside the forest at this point, keeping one stack at home and one on the offense so that there's no curve balls thrown your way. By this point you should have the glades to the SE and NE (optimally speaking, others work of course) acting as cash flows to let you have two heavily trained stacks of troops. Later on in the campaign once you've slaughtered a few Beastmen hordes and are campaigning against the outside factions some of them will be happy to offer alliances with you. These alliances are dangerous because your fellow elves are loving dicks and may decide to declare on them. Check the offering nation's relationship status before you agree! Proceed as you are until Morghu spawns again. By this point you should hopefully have enough to make the last tier of the Oak. The Beastmen will begin attacking you again at this point. Remember the lore. Or look it up if you haven't had it before. The waystones act as a guard for the forest, and this is true in the game too. Border the forest with waystones for those insane garrisons (That can take on nearly a full stack of Beastmen.  ) since they'll be burning and pillaging instead of beelining this time.That's about it. On to the final battle! The Final Battle: This is loving tough if you aren't ready for it. It's an endurance match while you're playing as a faction that's a glass cannon. Bring lots of trained eternal guards with shields along with archers and wardancers. Also, if you can spare the Amber two forest dragons along with three units of Eternal Guards with shields can hold one flank by themselves with only a little help from the occasional spell from Orion. Consider cavalry as well for their shock potential. Position your archers along the ridges to fire at encroaching hordes. The Beastmen will not stop spawning until Morghur is dead. This is where the game drops any pretense of pretending it isn't basically a survival mode. Think of the map and fight as a tower defense game. The archers are your offense against incoming units while the melee positioned at the inclines to the higher ground are your walls. Position them accordingly. Morghur and his unique Chaos Spawn will be all but invincible (95% damage reduction!) for 60 seconds apiece once the first time the damage shield drops. Again, the fight is playing to the micro-heavy nature of the Wood Elves. When it drops refocus all archers and heroes on him and use the sniper skill if you have a waywatcher. When it goes back up pause the fight and refocus back on other mobs so you don't waste ammo. You can do this without a life mage (I did.) but it may be hard depending on your army composition, difficulty you're playing on, and how experienced you are at the game. FWIW I did it without any treemen and had a full elf army of infantry, archers, and cavalry with the addition of two freshly recruited forest dragons. Even so, consider trading out one of those valuable unit slots (You will need every unit you can get.) for one that can heal others. Also consider both the melee defense and offense buff line and the ammo and ranged attack traits. They'll help turn the EG into a meaty wall of angry shields while the wardancers do their thing on the flanks. If you run out of arrows on a unit send them into the fight. Things should hopefully be spread out enough that your archers can flank the troops. This is the last fight so if they die gloriously it doesn't matter. Preferably they should be supporting the fight against Morghur, but if the flank with the dragons is withering don't be afraid to lend a bit of aid. Once Morghur is down the Beastmen will (barring the fight going heavily against you) start to lose morale rapidly. Take advantage of this and rush them. Route them then just pursue them to their spawn point so they flee off the map. The other AI elf army should hopefully have done decently enough to handle theirs as well since they're the side that usually gets Cygors. That's about it. Enjoy your new lord and faction unlock! Archonex fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Dec 9, 2016 21:07
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Thanks for the tips Archonex. I've been beating my head against a wall trying Orion on Very Hard. Sometime between having an enemy Wild Rider frontally charge and defeat a unit of Eternal Guards, that same wild rider squad at ~20 units routing two full Glade Rider squads, and Dorthu burning the Oak of Ages, I decided a new approach was necessary.
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Dec 9, 2016 21:17
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Atlanton posted:Thanks for the tips Archonex. No problem, glad to help. Here's my question: I know that beating the campaign with Orion gives The Red Duke and Mousillon as an unlockable faction but does beating it with Durthu give something different? Leaks prior to the release of the DLC suggested it did. It seems odd that Durthu is such a bad pick for the campaign if he gets the same thing.
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Dec 9, 2016 21:21
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