Thoughts on TWW2

[Chromium]

I've tried out 4 Campaigns on TWW2 until now.

1- Malekith, N, until Turn 30
2- Teclis, H, until Turn 100
3- Mazdamundi, H, until Turn 40 (mostly turtled)
4- Tyrion, VH, until Turn 120

Thinking of starting one with Teclis again, this time sending his forces to Africa. Here are my views on the Game.

The Vortex mechanic is a huge shaggy dog at best. At worst, it's an active liability for your Campaign. Let's look at it objectively.

1- The benefits aren't really that great, even on VH. Except for possibly the Slann one & the Black Ark one. But even these, aren't really necessary.

2- The amount of time & funds spent on defending the Ritual sites is absurd. In my Teclis campaign, I had 5 armies- chaos & intervention- attacking sites at once & destroying every minor settlement they found. Expansion is almost impossible if you're trying out the Rituals. Simply having armies stomp up & own in your Empire's heartland is irritating enough.

3- The Player can NEVER compete with the DEs in terms of Rituals. They have few enemies, far too settlements in their continent, & confederate far too easily.

In my Tyrion campaign, I haven't performed one ritual yet- & I'm easily the dominant power in the World. DE, Skaven are at 2. Mazdamundi is at 1. But DE are a gutted remnant of what they were; I emptied Ulthuan of troops- since I don't do rituals, there's ZERO danger of having my core cities attacked, & reduced them from 50-odd cities to less than 20 within 40 turns. I allied with Teclis & that Talxa faction to nearly wipe out Skaven in Lustria. Mazdamundi only survives because I generously signed a NA & Trade pact with him after burning most of his cities to the ground.

HE Armies & Fleets rule the World. My two HE allies are taking the fight to the Vampires in the South- Trade from them gets me 3K per turn from each. No one can conduct a ritual unless I willed it. If I'd kept 2-3 armies at home, swatting Chaos & Intervention armies all the time, none of this would've happened. And even if by some miracle, the 4th ritual is performed- my Level 40 Tyrion & his Full stack of Phoenix Guard, Lothern Sea Guard, Dragon Princes, & Dragons would be enough to handle anything.

TL;DR:- The Rituals are meaningless. Rape, Kill, Pillage are still the perfect MO for any Faction.

[jahjeremy]

I'm at around turn 208 on Mazdamundi with Lizardmen on Hard, and I agree the rituals are a somewhat odd mechanic. I'm actually on the 2nd to last ritual but I haven't activated it because I don't have any of my main armies near the ritual cities to defend them against the Chaos stacks that spawn. Naggarond has been a pest even since they started trying to activate their final ritual. I've had 2 of my stacks causing havoc with them to prevent them from completing. Juggling your own expansion with attacking others who are performing rituals as well as activating the rituals yourself does seem difficult. That said, I'm having a really epic campaign. I have a level 40 Mazdamundi with 2 level 40 heroes as well as a few other full stacks. The game looks like it will go into turn 300 territory as long as I can raze the cities of other factions participating in the rituals, though I'm getting antsy to try out another faction before I actually achieve victory. My OCD makes me want to complete this damn Lizardman campaign!

[Daruwind]

I was trying the same in two campaigns the same...for science of course! But my results were simple. In many TW I deliberately limited myself or tried not to utilize certain weak aspects of enemy to prolonge campaign and have fun and gave Ai a chance. In WH2 I can simply do Vortex and it will harder the game for myself. I want challange. Expansion without rituals is easy for seasoned TW player especially for lower difficulties. But then agian why play it the same way at WH1 main campaign or as we will play Mortal Empires?

I hope the CA will tweak it little in next patches and with addition of other races we might see different win mechanics for them and more active competion once we have more fully fledge out factions on the map. For example I hope Tomb Kings will have mechanics to inwoke Nagash and flood the world with undead legions or something like that.

I admit there are weak points like these intervention armies as they are usually super weak. Let´s see what will change down the line after a few patches

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

I agree that as it is currently it seems like it's there mostly for RP purposes. But I don't think the mechanic is inherently flawed, I just think it needs bigger risks and bigger rewards. As for competing with the AI for ritual currency, the various difficulty levels give the AI vastly increased ritual currency income, so that's why it's so difficult to compete with them.

[LestaT]

I like playing around with other factions rituals. Using my allies and the soawen army to disrupt them.

Only if faction (in this case the HE) started their last ine then only I send my own forces.

I'm now able to perform my last one, but holding on until I can pull back all my forcds from Ulthuan. Currently having so much fun taking back the settlwmwnts there from the HE.

I guess the fun is in the RP for me.

[Daruwind]

What i´m interesting now in is how they plan to add new factions. CA said the new faction won´t compete in Vortex but they will probably get their own mechanics..something like resurrection of Nagash for Tomb Kings and so on? WH1 has nine total factions and I hope WH2 will get at least 8 as well, especially when WH is doing so well in terms of money (well WH2 got nice reviews + looks like lot people buying + lot of people happy with state of WH2) so i´m really curious what will these ather factions have as goal.

Tomb Kings are almost confirmed, Tiles/Estalia/Border with Mercenary armies, Araby, race pack from old world expanding Wood elves,Vampires,Dwarves,Empire... into new world?

[zoot]

found the end vortex battle to be underwhelming, the reinforcements, which you have no control over, steam rolled the bad guys, I got in a few licks, but I just waited for them , the reinforcements, to swarm up the steps of the temple and waste everything, I decided my army would be back up.

[Earl Dibbles Jr]

found the end vortex battle to be underwhelming, the reinforcements, which you have no control over, steam rolled the bad guys, I got in a few licks, but I just waited for them , the reinforcements, to swarm up the steps of the temple and waste everything, I decided my army would be back up.

Huh? As the High Elves I had to face 4 full stacks with one army led by Tyrion for the final battle.

[LestaT]

I think he meant the final battle if other faction completed the 5th ritual.

If you're the one completing than you have to defend against the 3 other factions and the horned rat army.

If other faction completed the 5th ritual first, you'll be one of the factions that go and attack the faction who completed the ritual, together with other AI factions that will be your ally/reinforcement during that battle.

[herne_the _hunter]

Not to do with the game as such but this has been bugging me. 10 hours after TWH2 release and RIP Denuvo. Shouldn't SEGA just drop this in future and just use Steam as the only DRM

Sorry just had to get this off my chest. Just delete if applicable.

[craziii]

I kinda want to stay away from the forums and reddit till I had my fill like last game, but lets share my thoughts.

I actually did the same as op trying out all the races and playing as lizardmen atm. I did not expand beyond 2 provinces and 2 artifact nodes till about the 3rd ritual(about 100 turns for me). I want to give ai the chance to build up eco and mil.

the vortex is basically a fancy version of the end turn limits of old total war games. get it? :) pretty cool of ca using lore this way :)

I defended 3 rituals with only 2 stacks. easily. it gets hard once you expand though. the more province capitals you own, the harder it is to defend. as the ritual sites are random. it isn't that the scripted spawn stacks are hard, but that I don't have enough income to field more than 1 army stack per 2-3 full provinces. to prevent minor settlements being raze by these stacks, build walls. they give extra garrison units and wall. I build walls for all my settlements simply because of the scripted spawn stacks. so you don't waste 40-60 turns rebuilding a razed one. learned this the hard way.

Don't worry about ritual speed till about 3+. by 100+ turn you should be expanding towards the sites that gives you 20 pieces each. once you have 4 such sites generating the needed currency for rituals, you should pull ahead easily. I did.



quick and dirty pro tips for new players:

notifications can be changed :) bottom right corner gear icon. this is the single most important QOL change made by CA :) bravo CA, bravo. (sorry if I missed this in warhammer 1, haven't play it in a fairly long time)

guys, in case you missed it. you can also change the scale of the UI. so good, soooo good. almost as good as the notifications. my sweet spot is 75%-80%. now I can see more of the game without the need to turn off UI :) the events list can show more than 2-3 before having to scroll :) huge time saver.

you can send a lone general and just go around collecting wrecks/islands in the ocean. very very easy money/bonuses/exp/magic items and gear. and they respawn :)

lizardmen tips:

all of the heroes/agents(not generals) can be upgraded to monstrous tanks(upgrading them with high hp mounts also ups their upkeep) that does crazy dmg or cast spells :) stagedon mounts act as siege and anti everything :)))

getting some heroes with the humble trait = super high lvl new recruits. and the trait stack. in my current campaign, I can recruit lvl 11 skink priests ahahah.

terrordons made cold ones(cavalry) obsolete :) poison for single target, the fire one for aoe anti infantry. only drawback, for a flying unit, it is slow as hell, but that isthe same as all flying units in this game. I guess it is for balance purposes.

[Ichon]

Changes to UI are great, CA hit 80% of what I wanted changed. VH and Legendary AI have noticeably increased cheats. 1 region can field 2 full mid-high tier armies if you give the AI time to build up. So yeah... once you get 9 regions and 3 provinces you can afford 2.5 armies but the nearby AI with 20-30 regions will have 30-40 armies typically (if there is fighting that should never happen but a faction that is at peace for 20 turns with 8 regions will have 16 or more armies). In the early campaign, this increase in the AI resources is quite fun... by turn 150 when I have already fought 200 manual battles and still need to play 50 more turns it isn't quite as fun. HE armies can autoresolve even on Legendary more than half the time so that helps lower but if you play Skaven... it takes stamina.

Vortex race is interesting at least if you play for it- the AI is impossible to beat on VH and Legendary unless you have 4 ritual sites but by then might have impossible to catch lead so you have to raze their cities when they start the ritual to catch up (or wait for the final intervention battle that is really easy). Domination victories if you go all out are actually not that bad since you only need to completely eliminate 1 other race stop Vortex and that can happen in just a little over 100 turns if you aim for it.

I do think CA needs to be careful with the tech and leader bonus stacking making units with some crazy stats compared to game 1.

Overall CA did better depicting the races than in the first game and as a result it is even more fun to play most of the time and I enjoyed the first game.

Level 40 Lords feels about right- level 40 Heroes.... run out of things to spend points on that matter somewhere in the 20s and seem slightly too available though the AI doesn't spam them you can easily have 50+ Heroes once you get a continent if you want. With the stacked bonuses etc having armies of almost all heroes is completely possible and I think they would dominate the AI though the battles might be a bit longer until most rank up to get some faster mounts.

The early ritual invasion spawns are easy. Walled garrisons can totally handle them by autoresolve in the first 2 waves. The third wave will usually require manual battle but the garrison alone can still win. 4th wave will require at least 1 if not 2 defensive armies. The 5th wave is actually kinda intense- 7-9 armies 10 turns apart so the AI might have 14-18 armies if you don't kill them quickly and they are all gold chevroned, high tier armies that require manual battles at least once, leftovers can be defeated in autoresolve but you'll take losses even then. With lightning strike and/or ambush that is still probably 8-12 manual battles or a solid hour and a half or so of battles to get through then there is a final battle vs 4 armies in a row that is not as difficult as that sounds because CA gives a free heal spell and very powerful damage spell that you can cast every 30-45 seconds as well as unlimited ammo. My arty and ranged had 300-400 each in the final battle. Would be alot more interesting if CA only 2x the ammo not completely unlimited.

Even without DLC I will say I'm quite happy with it and just needs a few bug fixed and some tweaks in patches, 85% at launch is really good! With DLC and some patches easily 90% and I only liked 2 other games in the past 10 years that much. With the 3rd game and final tweaks I don't think it is crazy to suggest this will be CA's best TW franchise ever. I can see playing this for another 10 years especially with mods and will supercede MTW2 longevity even without campaign map mods I think.

[LestaT]

Anyone feels 40 point for agents a bit too much?

[Frost, colonel]

to prevent minor settlements being raze by these stacks, build walls. they give extra garrison units and wall. I build walls for all my settlements simply because of the scripted spawn stacks. so you don't waste 40-60 turns rebuilding a razed one. learned this the hard way.

Don't worry about ritual speed till about 3+. by 100+ turn you should be expanding towards the sites that gives you 20 pieces each. once you have 4 such sites generating the needed currency for rituals, you should pull ahead easily. I did.

quick and dirty pro tips for new players:
you can send a lone general and just go around collecting wrecks/islands in the ocean. very very easy money/bonuses/exp/magic items and gear. and they respawn

I find these bits you mentioned are key, had to experiment a bit to get the feel of the new game, at the start I send 2 Lords out in opposite directions going right round the map, and repeat. Trade partners are also spotted, I had 200,000 in cash and so many weapons/magic items that I had a large excess.

All in all I like CA's new offering, looking forward to the Tome Kings, etc.

Thanks for the tip on the Humble trait.

[kanzy]

Don not click the spoiler if you haven't finished the Vortex campaign, major story spoiler.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You really don't need to do any ritual, just play normally and wait for the other factions to do all the rituals they want, after the final ritual you will get a chance for one last battle at the Vortex against the faction that finished he last ritual and you get the other 2 races as allies, you basically can't lose that battle even if you tried. After that the faction you beat will be out of the rituals game for ever, rinse and repeat and all factions are out and you can then do it just for the story if you like

[craziii]

I find these bits you mentioned are key, had to experiment a bit to get the feel of the new game, at the start I send 2 Lords out in opposite directions going right round the map, and repeat. Trade partners are also spotted, I had 200,000 in cash and so many weapons/magic items that I had a large excess.

All in all I like CA's new offering, looking forward to the Tome Kings, etc.

Thanks for the tip on the Humble trait.

glad it is of help.

Anyone feels 40 point for agents a bit too much?

nah, if you can get to lvl 40, you deserve to have an op agent. Ichon talking about running out of things to spend points in high lvl lords is just nutty, that reads like a stupid reason asking for nerfs. I always wanted more points. especially in lords/generals. it literally takes 150-200+ turns just to get a lord or hero to lvl 30+. that is with constant use every turn.

[LestaT]

nah, if you can get to lvl 40, you deserve to have an op agent. Ichon talking about running out of things to spend points in high lvl lords is just nutty, that reads like a stupid reason asking for nerfs. I always wanted more points. especially in lords/generals. it literally takes 150-200+ turns just to get a lord or hero to lvl 30+. that is with constant use every turn.

I dont mind Lords have 40 because of the new skills.

Just for agents. Seems like by 40, most if not all my agents are the same.

Not asking for nerf but maybe I'm mod the skill points for agents myself back to 30.

That way the agents can be more different than each other base on skill sets chosen. Currently there's almost no different between my campaign map agents and battlemap agents.

In the first game I have agents that specialize in campaig and agents in battles, base on what skill sets that I choose for them.

I'm the 'less is better' rather 'more is better' type of player.

[Ichon]

glad it is of help.

nah, if you can get to lvl 40, you deserve to have an op agent. Ichon talking about running out of things to spend points in high lvl lords is just nutty, that reads like a stupid reason asking for nerfs. I always wanted more points. especially in lords/generals. it literally takes 150-200+ turns just to get a lord or hero to lvl 30+. that is with constant use every turn.

I think CA might need to tweak down the sea treasures a bit. There are often 5-6 in sea nearby starting locations and that is usually 20-30,000 gold that repeats every 10 turns.

As for the Lords 40 feels about right- not enough to get everything but you only have to give up 1 or 2 things though it doesn't take 100s of turns to get level 40 with the number of battles you'll fight in higher difficulties. Queek was level 40 before turn 60 and 2nd Lord was level 32 few turns later.

The Heroes though... 40 points leaves only a couple skills blank, literally 90% of their skills are filled at 40 points.

[Dumanthis]

Don not click the spoiler if you haven't finished the Vortex campaign, major story spoiler.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You really don't need to do any ritual, just play normally and wait for the other factions to do all the rituals they want, after the final ritual you will get a chance for one last battle at the Vortex against the faction that finished he last ritual and you get the other 2 races as allies, you basically can't lose that battle even if you tried. After that the faction you beat will be out of the rituals game for ever, rinse and repeat and all factions are out and you can then do it just for the story if you like

OMG, just dropped from my chair

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

show

PS: So you cannot basicly lose to the AI like the CA advertised? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG_wtLmL4iY

[craziii]

I dont mind Lords have 40 because of the new skills.

Just for agents. Seems like by 40, most if not all my agents are the same.

Not asking for nerf but maybe I'm mod the skill points for agents myself back to 30.

That way the agents can be more different than each other base on skill sets chosen. Currently there's almost no different between my campaign map agents and battlemap agents.

In the first game I have agents that specialize in campaig and agents in battles, base on what skill sets that I choose for them.

I'm the 'less is better' rather 'more is better' type of player.

if you can get all your agents to lvl 30+ or lvl 40, you are nuts. but if max lvl, it should be OP. getting one of my own to lvl 34 was hard enough, I can't imagine getting all my agents to lvl 40. that is just nuts.


@Ichon leave the treasures alone. it is just a side thing players can do. and it is of great help for new players. stop trying to nerf stuff in a single player game. you can choose to not explore them in your own playthroughs and voila, problem solved.

in fact, please stop trying to nerf things in the campaign.