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Beastmen are one of the armies that can consistently escape agent harassment. Beast path somewhere over a river or impassable forest and encamp. You're invisible to enemies unless they get close and lucky, which they shouldn't since you've just beastpathed somewhere out of the way.
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Dec 24, 2016 17:51
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Carcer posted:You're invisible to enemies unless they get close and lucky, which they shouldn't since you've just beastpathed somewhere out of the way. Edit: The AI agents did wait around after making their way to me until my army was discovered. So the AI does respect the rules up to a certain level, but it does seem like it is capable of ignoring the invisibility thing. Raygereio fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Dec 24, 2016 |
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Dec 24, 2016 17:55
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Raygereio posted:At this point I'm convinced the best improvement CA can make to the TW series is to scrap the agent system entirely. They're obviously incapable of making it not frustrating, so why even have it? One of the higher-ups loves the idea of it and they can just copy-paste 90% of the code from one game to the next.
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Dec 24, 2016 18:26
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Carnalfex posted:Honestly I think that argument is better the other way around. It's crazy how expensive and late caster heroes are to recruit in the campaign. Especially when they tend not to bring as much to the table as a much easier to field rogue or warrior hero unless you can baby them all the way up to the one good spell in whatever lore they are and you don't have a caster LL that could make use of your winds (though that is more of an issue with the magic system overall). They're also the one agent that doesn't bring a lot of benefits to the strategic level with their one use there generally being +income if you park them in a rich province. Edge of the seat excitement, that. To be fair most factions throw a free wizard at you early in the campaign so you're never really playing the game for long without magic unless you're playing like Grimgor or Skarsnik. It's also something the DLC races do better, you don't need T4/T5 cities to get casters out with Beastmen or Wood Elves. I agree with your overall point though CA is way too cautious with magic and it makes Wizarding in general less satisfying as a result. Like Gelt's thing is supposedly massing Wizards with his campaign bonus but you never really do that because it's both super-late game and pointless, the only thing you ever need a bunch of Wizards for is sending them around the map to do Gelt's dumb item quests or keeping one in his army to to use real magic instead of his garbage spells. That said Lore of Shadow and Lore of Life are pretty cool and hopefully CA finally boosts other spells to their level instead of nerfing the poo poo out of all new spells as per usual.
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Dec 24, 2016 18:27
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Fangz posted:What is even the point of teching up to tier 4 and building a hugely expensive building and paying upkeep on a wizard that you have to baby up to being useful if you could click anywhere and recruit a caster lord from turn 1 at any settlement that does it better? Ok, lets compare the two. I can start Franz and get better campaign/army bonuses, have an easier time winning the first several battles, and pick up a free Wizard hero by like turn 6 if I feel like it. That Wizard hero will also be better than Gelt because Lore of Metal is ballz. I have to wait longer to unlock Gelt but he's worse than a generic Empire General or Arclector so I'm cool with that. Or I can start with Gelt and have weaker campaign/army bonuses and eventually pick up a melee hero who is in no way comparable to Franz. Result: Worse melee, worse magic, worse campaign perks. Yay. The only advantage to starting Gelt is that I can get two LLs faster and that disappears the instant another choice is available. Hello Volkmar/Ghorst ect, goodbye starting Gelt or Kemmler ever again. I mean, we even have factions (Greenskins/Chaos) already that can recruit generic Wizard Lords from turn one if they feel like it. Hardly anyone bothers because even the generic melee lords are more useful. CA has stopped adding generic Caster Lords to factions completely since the game came out and I don't think it's a coincidence. My first Warhammer campaign was with Gelt. I love the wizards more than anyone but I can't pretend the Caster Lords aren't inferior choices. Again, barring the DLC because several of those guys are pretty good to great. Wurzag is a great model for Wizard LLs, he owns and does a bunch of stuff including not having poo poo campaign/army bonuses compared to melee lords.
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Dec 24, 2016 18:46
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You also get that free wizard with the Gelt start?
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Dec 24, 2016 18:52
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What DLC is worth buying? I've got some steambuxs to burn and nothing on sale is catching my eye so might as well buy DLC! I tried looking at steam reviews but they were completely useless and whining about DLC prices and stuff with no actual content about said DLC.
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Dec 24, 2016 18:55
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Fangz posted:You also get that free wizard with the Gelt start? Which means Gelt is doubly useless because they pull from the same winds of magic in the same stack and the other Wizard's stuff is basically always going to be worth spending over Gelt. So...
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Dec 24, 2016 19:01
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Red Mundus posted:What DLC is worth buying? I've got some steambuxs to burn and nothing on sale is catching my eye so might as well buy DLC! If you are playing for the first time get Grim and the Grave, since that's a straight improvement on the VC/Imperial grand campaigns and there's not much point playing them on vanilla. If you enjoyed Greenskins or Dwarves go for King and Warlord. Beastmen if you like a straightforward romp, wood elves if you want to play the most ridiculous steamroller faction before CA nerfs the hell out of it. Chaos if you still want more. Zore posted:Which means Gelt is doubly useless because they pull from the same winds of magic in the same stack and the other Wizard's stuff is basically always going to be worth spending over Gelt. You're allowed more than one army you know. Or you can use the second wizard to cut your building costs. Edit: I'm not really trying to argue against people's styles of play. My point is that Gelt's main issue is the weakness of metal, which makes his thing (an unique school of magic outside of a dlc faction) kinda a damp squib. Generally speaking I run mage lord armies - it lets me get spells out on each of my stacks much earlier, and I find it suits my risk averse style of play where I don't like to commit my Lords. I kinda find melee lords tend to get whittled down, and a melee lord without a lot of health is basically a giant liability, whereas a caster can still make a substantial difference. And yeah, captains are super easy to get. Fangz fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Dec 24, 2016 |
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Dec 24, 2016 19:02
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Fangz posted:You also get that free wizard with the Gelt start? Yes, and it's not nearly as useful for him as it is for Franz or Volkmar. He'd be much happier with a free captain or warrior priest. It's also the problem with Gelts campaign bonus in general, extra Wizard Heroes are not terribly useful for anything and actually benefits Gelt personally the least. quote:What DLC is worth buying? I've got some steambuxs to burn and nothing on sale is catching my eye so might as well buy DLC! King and the Warlord and Grim and the Grave are great value for their costs, (King and the Warlord especially) they add a lot of enjoyment to the four base factions and all the new LL's are pretty great. The campaign packs are the most expensive but also the most content heavy. I'd personally suggest Elves before Beastmen but both races have their fans. Chaos is not overpriced for what you get but it's the least good DLC easily. Their campaign is kind of a slog and not that fun to play through. Blood is purely cosmetic but it's also the cheapest, do you want gore yes/no Really the only DLC I'd hesitate before getting is Chaos.
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Dec 24, 2016 19:04
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Carnalfex posted:Honestly magic is pretty limpwristed, there's a reason why "magic sucks less" mods like molay's and now cataph's are so popular. I get that CA didn't want battles to be decided with one spell. I get that they couldn't figure out a way to put counter-magic mechanics in the game that would enable players to fight against big powerful spells. Pretty much my thoughts on it too. AOEs like vortex and bombardment should be powerful enough to counter blobbing but also give enough of a tell that players can avoid them, at the cost of disrupting their formations. While I'll admit that I don't actually play multiplayer, watching people like Turin makes it seem like the most reliable strategies all rely on lines of mixed melee infantry smashing directly into each other, a couple of speedy flankers to take out any artillery or ranged troops, and the constant cycling of area buffs/debuffs and unavoidable direct damage spells to tick down those lifebars.
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Dec 24, 2016 19:17
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Raygereio posted:I'm honestly not sure the AI got that memo. I did that and with all three attempts the Ai agents just made their way over to me like they knew exactly where I was. I've always wondered about this. From playing Chaos we all know that the AI is omnipresent and knows where you are whether you've met before or not, so I wonder how this interacts with the Beastmen ambush stance? Do they still know where your army is but technically can't interact with it unless they spot the ambush?
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Dec 24, 2016 19:41
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Mordja posted:Pretty much my thoughts on it too. AOEs like vortex and bombardment should be powerful enough to counter blobbing but also give enough of a tell that players can avoid them, at the cost of disrupting their formations. While I'll admit that I don't actually play multiplayer, watching people like Turin makes it seem like the most reliable strategies all rely on lines of mixed melee infantry smashing directly into each other, a couple of speedy flankers to take out any artillery or ranged troops, and the constant cycling of area buffs/debuffs and unavoidable direct damage spells to tick down those lifebars. Yeah, you said it. They already put all the work into those big showy spells like firestorm and black hole, why not make them actually something you'd cast? As a side bonus it would mean fights could be more interesting than just mashing large quantities of infantry+ a couple flankers against each other's faces and would add value to units that aren't infantry/cavalry. As it is caster, archer, and artillery units tend to be much harder to reliably get value out of and are easy to counter.
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Dec 24, 2016 20:33
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The only time Balthazar Gelt was worthwhile was with Molays mod. He made an early attack on Marienberg castle tough but winnable with searing doom and armor debuffs. RIP molays
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Dec 24, 2016 21:21
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Are there any mods that make the AI use their heroes more in battle instead of spamming actions? Or would fighting 2-3 extra melee heroes with every enemy stack be too annoying?
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Dec 24, 2016 21:21
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Deified Data posted:I've always wondered about this. Yes, that's correct.
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Dec 24, 2016 22:14
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Agent spam is funny playing Beastmen with Morghur, the the Wood Elves assassinated him twice in a row only to have him show back up immediately and burn down their stupid forest. Meanwhile having a goblin big boss critically assassinate my maxed out waystalker was pretty unfortunate. I think Shogun II was the last time I had fun with agents, it's really strange how half their functions are useless in an unmodded game because the AI doesn't deal with public order or attrition in any meaningful way.
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Dec 24, 2016 22:43
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Asking for a friend interested in the game, is this Scdkey site legit and has anyone ordered anything from them before? https://www.scdkey.com/total-war-wa...Gh5zxoCFUbw_wcB They got warhammer for 35$ instead of steam's 45$
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Dec 25, 2016 00:01
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Just spend the extra  to make sure you're not enabling some money laundering
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Dec 25, 2016 00:38
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:Are there any mods that make the AI use their heroes more in battle instead of spamming actions? Melee heroes are always such a slog to fight. I generally bring a stack of handgunners/thunderers just to unload on a melee hero that my Lord is engaging because the engine just wasn't built well for one-on-one fights, and it's really lame having an entire unit of halberdiers get killed by a single dwarf or whatever.
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Dec 25, 2016 02:48
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Hey guys, i have been hearing good things about this game and decided to get it off this steam winter sale. As this is my first total war game, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by everything. Any ideas on how to start off the game on a good foot? I've been starting as the dawi as the game says it is the easiest faction but I have no idea what I'm doing. Which skills should I prioritise for my lords usually? I'm using the dawi king who rides on a chariot as main lord as he seems uber cool!
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Dec 25, 2016 05:36
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For me, the easiest thing to do with dwarves is invest in the red skill trees with your lord and have a bunch of warriors and quarrelers and some grudge throwers as soon as you can get them. With dwarves you can just setup your army in a big protective box and let your quarrelers and artillery melt everything. It's useful to get used to using some of the movement controls to keep your formation together. Ctrl+a to select everyone then you can hold down alt and left mouse click drag to move your army around. Also I think it's Alt+Ctrl+Left mouse that lets you pivot your entire formation. The AI loves to take fast units and try to flank to get to your artillery and/or ranged so a unit of warriors on each flank lined up to eat the charge is useful. Dwarves are super fun once you get used to playing them and their tier 1 units remain viable for forever, at least at Hard difficulty which is what I play. fnordcircle fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Dec 25, 2016 |
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Dec 25, 2016 06:03
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Set up your dwarves into a pillbox. Enemy cavalry will try and sneak behind you so try and find natural terrain to help you. Underway interceptions are really good because you can jam your army into one side forcing their flankers into one side. Researching upgrades and skills makes dwarf warriors nearly as effective as Longbeards. Quarrelers have a great arcing shot, try to shoot at enemies tied up in combat with other units. Warriors/longbeards have charge defense vs large. This means as long as they are still and facing horse sized enemies or larger they'll ignore the enemy charge bonus. Combined with good armor and shields makes them very durable. As units on the flanks win battles be sure to close in to surround other blobs. There is a big leadership penalty to getting attacked from the rear so you can chain rout enemies when the battle goes well. Generally I like to have 1 or 2 provinces being recruitment centers, having military tech buildings while the rest are money generation.
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Dec 25, 2016 06:54
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If you're completely new to the series, going through PartyElite's tutorial series would probably be useful. The in game tutorial is not all that comprehensive.
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Dec 25, 2016 12:59
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One fun thing you can do when you are new is set up a custom battle with you + one AI vs one other AI. Let the AI have their starting equal force value armies and then add yourself as an allied 'wild card' to one of those sides with a bunch of units to play around with (like some artillery, a LL or caster, some cavalry, a bunch of monsters, etc). The two AI opponents will go head to head in what should be a pretty balanced match and you can just sort of command your extra 4-5 units to get a hang of them without feeling much pressure to control a whole army at once. This is also a fun way to get a close look at the fighting and graphics.
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Dec 25, 2016 17:04
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shoc77 posted:Hey guys, i have been hearing good things about this game and decided to get it off this steam winter sale. Just about every faction has a skill in the combat tree in the first bracket section that says something like "+5 attack to <basic infantry unit for this faction>" then if you pick it again, you get "+10 attack / +10 damage for basic infantry" and there's a 3rd rank where both the attack and damage go up even further. Put 3 ranks into that skill ASAP and build a huge stack of 20 including a ton of those basic infantry, with a few other units to support. Then go roll over things. The biggest thing to learn early-game is that you don't want to just attack everybody, or you're going to get womped. You have to build up and pick your targets carefully; people who are weak you should attack and take their lands, but people who are strong you should try to set up diplomacy with instead. Then later when you're a huge empire you go after your former allies.
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Dec 25, 2016 18:37
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Another big tip (For single player) is don't skimp on basic infantry. They're not as fancy as cavalry or archers or cannons but they're what gives your army the stamina to win fights and if you have significantly more than the other guy you're going to surround and smash his puny infantry line and kick the crap out of anything that's left.
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Dec 25, 2016 20:51
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Ammanas posted:The only time Balthazar Gelt was worthwhile was with Molays mod. He made an early attack on Marienberg castle tough but winnable with searing doom and armor debuffs. RIP molays I miss Molay's mod. Cataph's is alright but it's a lot tamer; I actually had a lot more fun with the lords having crazy rear end monster items and overcasted spells that cost like 30 winds but could blow through an infantry line in one go. On another note, I have come to truly hate the Wood Elves when I'm not playing them and cannot wait until someone puts out a mod to switch their AI to defensive so they're maybe not more dangerous than the Storm of Chaos. Every time I play Empire, VC, or Skarsnik it's become a race to burn down Athel Loren before they become a nightmare and it's getting real old.
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Dec 25, 2016 22:52
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Kanos posted:On another note, I have come to truly hate the Wood Elves when I'm not playing them and cannot wait until someone puts out a mod to switch their AI to defensive so they're maybe not more dangerous than the Storm of Chaos. Every time I play Empire, VC, or Skarsnik it's become a race to burn down Athel Loren before they become a nightmare and it's getting real old. Download the mod that converts all capitols to ten slot holdings. poo poo gets loving wild and really balances out the wood elves.
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Dec 25, 2016 23:27
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Battles would be much more fun if magic and artillery caused bigger, badder explosions.
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Dec 25, 2016 23:29
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Party In My Diapee posted:Battles would be much more fun if magic and artillery caused bigger, badder explosions.
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Dec 25, 2016 23:40
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A lot shorter, I'd think.
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Dec 25, 2016 23:45
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Any spells stand out in lore of shadows? pit of shades is flashy and can probably combo with something that can hit everything in the vortex like a winds spell, the leadership debuff overcasted to be AOE seems potentially good to start routes sooner.
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Dec 26, 2016 00:24
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:Any spells stand out in lore of shadows? pit of shades is flashy and can probably combo with something that can hit everything in the vortex like a winds spell, the leadership debuff overcasted to be AOE seems potentially good to start routes sooner. Overcast pit of shades will pretty much destroy any heavy infantry units that eat full damage from it, it's the best vortex spell in the game easily. Miasma is a good cheap single target direct damage spell with a slow attached, and Pendulum has a weird aoe but can do respectable damage when lined up perfectly. Mindrazor is also a really good buff and the -Attack/Defense hex is solid. Smoke and Mirrors is one of the better augments also. Shadow is a really solid lore right now. Life otoh is also good but more divided. The healing spells are both super great along with the passive heal agument, but the buffs are kinda iffy and Dwellers Below does disappointing damage for how expensive it is. Still worth dropping if the enemy is blobbed up enough but it's got nothing on Pit of Shades.
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Dec 26, 2016 01:04
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:Any spells stand out in lore of shadows? pit of shades is flashy and can probably combo with something that can hit everything in the vortex like a winds spell, the leadership debuff overcasted to be AOE seems potentially good to start routes sooner.
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Dec 26, 2016 01:05
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Party In My Diapee posted:Battles would be much more fun if magic and artillery caused bigger, badder explosions. Artillery is fine, it's annoying enough to face when AI brings heavy artillery but I prefer magic more in the malazan scale: wild, rare and incredibly dangerous. The right spell SHOULD turn the tide of a battle rather than simply add a 2% improvement toward victory.
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Dec 26, 2016 01:09
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Ravenfood posted:The pendulum is pretty good. My branch dude consistently gets +100 kills with a couple well placed pendulums per battle, plus its effect is really really cool.
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Dec 26, 2016 01:10
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Carcer posted:A lot shorter, I'd think. Fall of the Samurai was good, yo.
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Dec 26, 2016 01:23
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I also miss molays, after his badass items the ones you get for legendary lord quest battles are underwhelming now. The red skill lines we get now break the game just as much and are way less cool.
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Dec 26, 2016 01:26
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I still think a retinue upgrade for legendary lords would make some of the vanilla LLs much more viable
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Dec 26, 2016 01:35
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