I knew there was something wrong with VH/Leg battles!

[Grimreapo]

One thing that has been common with me and WH:TW is when I am in the middle of a battle, I blink and then go like this:


As I see my units being torn apart by what should be in a sure win battle, granted the AI has always gotten some sort of buffs but I always loved playing on VH before Shogun 2 and then legendary during Shogun 2 but in WH the buffs the AI gains are insane, I'm going to hand this over to LegendofTotalWar:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkWLUo0U8is

The feels I got after watching that are many, I know what someone is bound to say "but its meant to be hard". *SIGHS* There is difference between a challenge and being a pain in the ass, for an example I'll use another game that has Legendary mode, Halo: In Halo 1 your the aliens did higher damage to the player, in order to get around this the player has to use cover, know what weapons to use and be able to fight more effectively, the CHALLENGE of Halo one made the player fight better and that felt satisfaction when beat a level. In Halo 2 they RANDOMLY spawn sniper Aliens that could 2 shot you if solo and if you came across a pair you could be dead within moments, this makes it harder than Halo 1 but it requires no skill as its RNG placement, no challenge its just a pain the ass...

I think that WH bring it to the surface even more due how the different the units are this time, in the other post-Shogun 2 games the unit differences are not as drastic as this one, in normal the Orcs and the Dwarves have a large leadership/morale difference which is fine but slide it up to VH you have that difference with the AI unit gaining 10 leadership AND the player losing -5 meaning there is a 15 leadership gap between units which is insane!

As pointed out by LegendofTotalWar because of how broke the Auto Resolve is, the player can get passed these insane buff by not playing battles and the results will ALWAYS be better than playing a battle, who want to get knocked around by cheating AI when you can just press that button? It removes the challenge from VH but it the only effective way to play VH, so the balance issues are so bad it better not to play most battles in Total War game...

I can smash the game on normal, I can smash the game on hard but VH/leg just feels like like the buffs have gone too far, I'll leave this quote here:
"Cheat wherever you can. A.I.s are handicapped. They need to cheat from time to time if they're going to close the gap... Never get caught cheating. Nothing ruins the illusion of a good A.I. like seeing how they're cheating."
— Jonny Ebert, lead designer of Dawn of War 2 on video game A.I

[geala]

I concur. I'd like a vh campaign with normal or hard battles. But if it's true that the battle difficulty slider just removes the -5 player leadership malus from vh difficulty then this is not possible. I wondered why my battles in my vh campaigns with "normal" battles were sometimes a bit more difficult than anticipated.

[Grimreapo]

I concur. I'd like a vh campaign with normal or hard battles. But if it's true that the battle difficulty slider just removes the -5 player leadership malus from vh difficulty then this is not possible. I wondered why my battles in my vh campaigns with "normal" battles were sometimes a bit more difficult than anticipated.

This remind me of Relic and Company of Heroes, when doing Balance patches Relic did the infamous "Double Nerfs" on units that slightly overpower making them much weaker when all they needed was a slight tone down, VH should be giving the AI buffs OR giving the player debuffs not BOTH. TBH what I would do is to get rid of Public Order bonus the AI gets on the campaign map but allow them a growth bonus so they get high tier units slightly before the player, getting smack around by of early game Trolls is better than getting trashed by unit you should be able to beat...

[Ichon]

TBH what I would do is to get rid of Public Order bonus the AI gets on the campaign map but allow them a growth bonus so they get high tier units slightly before the player, getting smack around by of early game Trolls is better than getting trashed by unit you should be able to beat...

Problem with that is the AI already gets a slight growth boost and if AI gets a much larger growth boost then as soon as player captures the first AI held region player also gains that boost which negates AI bonus instantly. Already when I play legendary I found many times it is better to let AI build up a bit so I can conquer level 3 towns instead of level 1 and then take 30+ turns and lots of gold to grow them myself.

Where CA really fails though is the AI army composition. Every game since Shogun 2 CA has coded the AI to produce fail armies and mods released soon after game launch do WAY better job... this is inexplicable by any rationale I can think of other than bad priority with programming or poor design but really a combination of those in my opinion.

As for the AI unit/battle boosts in TW I actually think they did a better job than in Rome 2 where especially the crazy boosts of ranged/skirmishers meant playing on Legendary it was useless to build armies with skirmishers or light cavalry as they would just melt vs AI in 2-3 volleys. Heavy infantry and heavy cavalry were the mainstays and consequently due to poor AI army composition once player survived the first 25 turns and got some decent units it was just steamroll. Some of the mods that gave AI strong army composition and research boost are still the hardest campaigns I've ever had in TW. Playing Macedon I have a campaign over 200 turns where I control Greece, Crete, and Thrace and have been locked into war vs Rome for 150 turns that requires 3 armies nearly all the time.

[Grimreapo]

Problem with that is the AI already gets a slight growth boost and if AI gets a much larger growth boost then as soon as player captures the first AI held region player also gains that boost which negates AI bonus instantly. Already when I play legendary I found many times it is better to let AI build up a bit so I can conquer level 3 towns instead of level 1 and then take 30+ turns and lots of gold to grow them myself.

Where CA really fails though is the AI army composition. Every game since Shogun 2 CA has coded the AI to produce fail armies and mods released soon after game launch do WAY better job... this is inexplicable by any rationale I can think of other than bad priority with programming or poor design but really a combination of those in my opinion.

That is a really good point but...

As for the AI unit/battle boosts in TW I actually think they did a better job than in Rome 2 where especially the crazy boosts of ranged/skirmishers meant playing on Legendary it was useless to build armies with skirmishers or light cavalry as they would just melt vs AI in 2-3 volleys. Heavy infantry and heavy cavalry were the mainstays and consequently due to poor AI army composition once player survived the first 25 turns and got some decent units it was just steamroll. Some of the mods that gave AI strong army composition and research boost are still the hardest campaigns I've ever had in TW. Playing Macedon I have a campaign over 200 turns where I control Greece, Crete, and Thrace and have been locked into war vs Rome for 150 turns that requires 3 armies nearly all the time.

I have to ask, have you played as Orcs on vanilla in leg? The Dwarves are meant to be tanky melee with ranged DPS which can be pinned with fast units BUT on legendary the DPS they can pull off is insane, on paper you need to use Wolf Riders to pin them from firing as WR dont have the damage to kill however due the normal WR having low morale and them being reduced even more on VH render them beyond crap. They could work if you had a 1:1 of them with the range units, if you bring too few WR then they will get shot up by any free range units when they pin one down and if they DONT bring so many ranged units then they are worthless as you cycle charge them into the rear of surrounded Dwarf units as you want was the Dwarves wont break at all...

That said, the Dwarves can be beaten, you just need to rush them on the campaign map, beat up the Red Fangs in battle, take Iron Rock but start building a 2nd a army (when you cant build units for Ironhide army you can build for) only buying the shiny cave for the capital and the 2nd tier Orc infantry, sack the RF closest settlement, get peace with the RF, make sure you at least one army has a 20 stack (preferably lead by Ironhide) as you then move toward the Dwarven capital beating all armies until you get a WAAAGH going and then siege the capital which allow you to win by sheer numbers alone. So what is the problem? The source of my aborted campaigns, the grave yard of my dreams, are Savage Orcs, I thought that Savage Orcs would be a like the Fallen Empires from Stellaris powerful but not aggressive to anyone unless you invaded their turf and how wrong I was. Savage Orcs are just better units, their ranged units are crazy powerful on VH and because of how far apart their settlements are you cant invade them on the campain map as YOUR progress will be so slow whilst SO armies will move around the players allowing them to take settlements that once belonged to you cause they can plough past any Garrison army due how powerful their armies are... The can also get waaaghs meaning even more SO units... Pretty sure its impossible to beat the SO on the battlefield with even numbers with VH on...

[Slaists]

I concur. I'd like a vh campaign with normal or hard battles. But if it's true that the battle difficulty slider just removes the -5 player leadership malus from vh difficulty then this is not possible. I wondered why my battles in my vh campaigns with "normal" battles were sometimes a bit more difficult than anticipated.

That battle difficulty slider is broken. VH campaign/Normal battles results in the AI still getting the VH battle morale bonuses (+10 to moralet). At least, that bonus is visible (can read it off enemy's unit cards in the battle). If there are other bonuses, those are invisible (also on very hard battle setting).

That battle difficulty slider is actually broken in all directions. Check normal campaign/very hard battles. The AI will not be getting the morale bonus in that setting.

[COOBelisarius]

I'll play devil's advocate here in that as a human you still have the huge, and I mean huge advantage of being able to recruit a far better army than the AI. As Empire for example, can have a well balanced mid tier army with cavalry and artillery probably chevron'd up quite a bit and the armies you're facing are trash. Over time your advantage grows even more because more experienced troops and lords compared to the crappy AI stacks occurs. The AI doesn't seem to build the right building combinations to allow it to create good units until very late in the game too.

[Ichon]

I have to ask, have you played as Orcs on vanilla in leg? The Dwarves are meant to be tanky melee with ranged DPS which can be pinned with fast units BUT on legendary the DPS they can pull off is insane, on paper you need to use Wolf Riders to pin them from firing as WR dont have the damage to kill however due the normal WR having low morale and them being reduced even more on VH render them beyond crap. They could work if you had a 1:1 of them with the range units, if you bring too few WR then they will get shot up by any free range units when they pin one down and if they DONT bring so many ranged units then they are worthless as you cycle charge them into the rear of surrounded Dwarf units as you want was the Dwarves wont break at all...

That said, the Dwarves can be beaten, you just need to rush them on the campaign map, beat up the Red Fangs in battle, take Iron Rock but start building a 2nd a army (when you cant build units for Ironhide army you can build for) only buying the shiny cave for the capital and the 2nd tier Orc infantry, sack the RF closest settlement, get peace with the RF, make sure you at least one army has a 20 stack (preferably lead by Ironhide) as you then move toward the Dwarven capital beating all armies until you get a WAAAGH going and then siege the capital which allow you to win by sheer numbers alone. So what is the problem? The source of my aborted campaigns, the grave yard of my dreams, are Savage Orcs, I thought that Savage Orcs would be a like the Fallen Empires from Stellaris powerful but not aggressive to anyone unless you invaded their turf and how wrong I was. Savage Orcs are just better units, their ranged units are crazy powerful on VH and because of how far apart their settlements are you cant invade them on the campain map as YOUR progress will be so slow whilst SO armies will move around the players allowing them to take settlements that once belonged to you cause they can plough past any Garrison army due how powerful their armies are... The can also get waaaghs meaning even more SO units... Pretty sure its impossible to beat the SO on the battlefield with even numbers with VH on...

Yes my first campaigns were as Azhag with the Black Venom start position and played the first 60 turns there on VH then had campaign ending bug and played Azhag on vanilla Legendary. I actually found the normal start position with Azhag far easier mostly due to the bonus money for completing objectives and the easier to reach map edge that offered significant protection. Felt a bit frenetic campaign with some tough battles at first but once learned how to use the early troops never needed anything more than a couple Trolls and some spider riders the rest of the campaign. I barely got Arachnoroks and Giants in my army that fought Archaon in the final battle that ended the Chaos invasion a few more turns of auto resolve to complete the long victory conditions.

Then I played Dwarfs. If you think winning as Greenskins is difficult on Legendary try playing as Dwarfs. The AI boosts are supremely obvious when Goblins (which I found utterly useless other than the archers as GS) can run over Dwarf Warriors though it does take a fair bit of time in the early battles. Then the Quarrelers which I thought would at least give a ranged advantage take heavy losses from Goblin archers and can barely finish them but usually not in time to focus fire on the Orcs/Goblins the Dwarf warriors are fighting. Once your Dwarf Lord gets a few of the unit boosting skills the battles become a bit easier but around that time usually the Ai will start fielding lots of Waaagh stacks and Boar Boy Riderz which Dwarfs don't have much answer to with just Warriors and Longbeards. I found Dwarfs the only army that requires unit boosts in both infantry and ranged for the Lord skills. However at a certain point the Dwarf gunline does come together and the late battles as Dwarfs are some of the easiest but it takes about 3/4 of a campaign to get there while with Greenskins the first 1/4 of a campaign is tough then there are enough troops options and money that players armies will always be better than the AI armies.

I do think that some of the AI boosts wouldn't be necessary if CA instead gave the AI boost in research and much better army composition. That would be far more enjoyable to me and actually force some harder choices about spending skill points on research and having to rush to better recruitment buildings or focus on economy first where now economy first is always the best path.

[Chereye]

Completed a legendary campaign with Empire within 75 turns on "long victory" playing out most of the battles, only ones I would auto resolve where the rebellions and I would get at least 2 rebellions each turn with how fast i was expanding (would take forever if I were to play them out) with Home region movement being the only mod that effected gameplay that I was using. Anyways, I dont think the buffs that the AI get from very hard difficulty is much to complain about considering as the player you have access to all sorts of buffs you can get your units that will make them on par if not greater than the AI's army. For instance for Empire your lord can go for a talent that gives swordsmen and your halberds +12 in attack and defense which is a bigger bonus than whatever bonuses difficulty gives to the AI and the AI is too damn brain dead to go for that talent themselves in most cases. Ohh and lets not forget all the technologies that gives bonuses to your units (+10 to Armour, 12% to damage etc.). The game is really easy, even on legendary.

[craziii]

anything above normal would have AI missile units owning yours, same with every other unit 1 v 1. those higher difficulties = smash and grab. speed, flank, spells, route, chase, shattered. if you want fair battles normal is the only way to play. you can always play the campaign on legend.

[Grimreapo]

Yes my first campaigns were as Azhag with the Black Venom start position and played the first 60 turns there on VH then had campaign ending bug and played Azhag on vanilla Legendary. I actually found the normal start position with Azhag far easier mostly due to the bonus money for completing objectives and the easier to reach map edge that offered significant protection. Felt a bit frenetic campaign with some tough battles at first but once learned how to use the early troops never needed anything more than a couple Trolls and some spider riders the rest of the campaign. I barely got Arachnoroks and Giants in my army that fought Archaon in the final battle that ended the Chaos invasion a few more turns of auto resolve to complete the long victory conditions.

Huh and you never had issues with the Savage Orcs? It them and the public order issues that I make the Orc Campain into total nightmares, on normal the base level Savage Orc unity is slight better than a Orc unit but in Leg they are insane...

Then I played Dwarfs. If you think winning as Greenskins is difficult on Legendary try playing as Dwarfs. The AI boosts are supremely obvious when Goblins (which I found utterly useless other than the archers as GS) can run over Dwarf Warriors though it does take a fair bit of time in the early battles. Then the Quarrelers which I thought would at least give a ranged advantage take heavy losses from Goblin archers and can barely finish them but usually not in time to focus fire on the Orcs/Goblins the Dwarf warriors are fighting. Once your Dwarf Lord gets a few of the unit boosting skills the battles become a bit easier but around that time usually the Ai will start fielding lots of Waaagh stacks and Boar Boy Riderz which Dwarfs don't have much answer to with just Warriors and Longbeards. I found Dwarfs the only army that requires unit boosts in both infantry and ranged for the Lord skills. However at a certain point the Dwarf gunline does come together and the late battles as Dwarfs are some of the easiest but it takes about 3/4 of a campaign to get there while with Greenskins the first 1/4 of a campaign is tough then there are enough troops options and money that players armies will always be better than the AI armies.

I should get around to playing as the dwarves beyond my quick mess around with them but they vastly better building than the Orcs which would give them an edge when they have enough cash to expand....

I do think that some of the AI boosts wouldn't be necessary if CA instead gave the AI boost in research and much better army composition. That would be far more enjoyable to me and actually force some harder choices about spending skill points on research and having to rush to better recruitment buildings or focus on economy first where now economy first is always the best path.

I agree with this so much, I know that the AI has to cheat but it can be done in more subtle, less brute force ways of doing it...

Completed a legendary campaign with Empire within 75 turns on "long victory" playing out most of the battles, only ones I would auto resolve where the rebellions and I would get at least 2 rebellions each turn with how fast i was expanding (would take forever if I were to play them out) with Home region movement being the only mod that effected gameplay that I was using. Anyways, I dont think the buffs that the AI get from very hard difficulty is much to complain about considering as the player you have access to all sorts of buffs you can get your units that will make them on par if not greater than the AI's army. For instance for Empire your lord can go for a talent that gives swordsmen and your halberds +12 in attack and defense which is a bigger bonus than whatever bonuses difficulty gives to the AI and the AI is too damn brain dead to go for that talent themselves in most cases. Ohh and lets not forget all the technologies that gives bonuses to your units (+10 to Armour, 12% to damage etc.). The game is really easy, even on legendary.

As the Empire it is easy as you have access to fast cash and only Norscia as a threat but just look at this mess (and yes, steam screen shots make the game look bad)...

I noticed the Top Knots Savage Orcs were sending 2 stacks to my capital but my badly timed Underway move proved to be deadly mistake:


Oooooh, they have Trolls! This will be bad, that said... the Power Bar is bit a bit lop side even with those trolls and Boar Boyz, no matter though my Orcs are expendable and I must kill as many of them as I can, make a think front line with my archers behind them to bleed the sheildless SO, so I will then use Grimgor's stack to finish them off in a few turns....


Still surprised at how the Power bar was strong for them I then mouse over their units:


ALL of their foot melee troops are Savage Big Uns! I dont stand a chance and my units are smashed in moments!


You may be thinking "What else do you think would happened if you dont tech up?", well the army I faced was a A WarBoss, 6x Savage Orc Big Uns, 2x SO Archers, 4x SO Boar Boyz and 3x Trolls, which is a solid mid-game army, right? Well that is the thing you see as what i faced was not even a technically Top Knots army...


It was just their Waaagh.... yeah... Their FREE Army had such a solid army build up but what I can I expect if I camp too much, right? I mean as I said, this is a solid mid-game army, right? Not really:



So to recap, The Top Knots are coming at me with a full stack, a WAAAAGH that has really advanced units for TURN 19... TURN 19! As you can see I got the Dwarves crushed but what the [ancient world ending curse] does this game want from me? How the hell can I counter a twin stack like that, if I went for numbers my tech would be delayed even more, if I took the attack to them early the SO would dance around my stacks in the badlands and if I wanted to use my own WAAAGH it would be much weaker than SO one...

I normally dont even care about losing, my 2nd longest lasting colony in Rimworld ended when a swarm of Beavers murdered all of my colonists, I was shocked at first and now I laugh over it. Warhammer on the other hand just makes me annoyed in all of the wrong ways,,,

[RGA]

Where was your Grimgor? At turn 19 he should have stacked enough upgrade points to increase the stats of basic units by a great deal. Together with a Waaagh army and some cunning maneuver (place your troops near settlement for example), two Savage orcs stacks are easy meat.

BTW, trolls are weak against concentrated missiles. They have quite low leadership.

[Grimreapo]

Where was your Grimgor? At turn 19 he should have stacked enough upgrade points to increase the stats of basic units by a great deal. Together with a Waaagh army and some cunning maneuver (place your troops near settlement for example), two Savage orcs stacks are easy meat.

BTW, trolls are weak against concentrated missiles. They have quite low leadership.

If you squint on the last pic you can see Grimgor up North as he had t be up there to put down yet another rebellion as the Orcs suck with PO when the Top Knots joined the war via a Dwarf Faction (???), I was sending the army that was in the Underway to Iron Rock to counter them and misjudged their ZoC, if you note the mini-map I merged with the Red Spears but when I did the SCHWATZHAFEN faction declared war which seems dumb but I have no issues with that.

I dont fear the trolls, if you notice I only start getting down because of how there are 6 Savage Big Uns which I dont really have an answer for, if you notice the defeat screen NONE of my units were wiped out as they all fled with most of them being above 50% numbers thanks to lower player morale, had my Boyz stood their ground a bit longer my archers could have much more damage and I could have bled them them out for Grimgor to smash them later. The other issues is invading SO lands sucks so hard because of how far apart their settlements are, they a love ducking and weaving past any armies moving toward their settlements (not unfair but just unfun)...

Again, I dont mind losing, my longest lasting Rimworld colony had gone on enough to get to the point where sieges by raiders were now possible and to stop them from building a mortar I assaulted their firebase, they had a crack Sniper who was able to kill 4 of my 5 colonists before even getting close and it was super brutal but I cant complain. Another larger group of more primitive raiders were attacking a few months before using my colonists armed looted shotguns with a looted Light Machine Gun I fired into the group of them and a single volley forced them back, I had noticed that that most of the raiders who were shot were still alive but they had their all of their legs blow off, so the brutalness of Rimworld works both ways and when you play better it has a rewarding feel to it...

[RGA]

I feel your pain but sorry, you simply overreached yourself: a lot of settlements with serious PO problem (result of confederation I guess) and only 3 low-tier stacks to defend, it's like an invitation for invasion. Greenskins don't have to attack every turn. Such over-agressive style of play would get you in trouble (as it got me) even at Normal difficulty.

[Osbot]

The biggest boost the AI gets in TW games on higher difficulties, is rate of fire boosts and accuracy to ranged fire boosts.

I actually haven't noticed if this is present in Warhammer, but it's been in Attila, Rome 2 and Shogun 2, and it is especially egregious in these three titles. Most people are unaware of this boost, but it really is the biggest boost the AI got in THOSE games. For evidence of how bad it is, play a horse archer faction in Rome 2 or Attila, and fight an AI battle on vhard or legendary. Give yourself a full horse archer army, and give the AI full horse archers, and watch as they shoot almost 2x faster and OBLITERATE you.