Advice what to do next

[Deztro]

Newbie player here so don't kick me too hard

Picked up this game after reading a few reviews (experienced Civilization player so I thought it was a bit like Civ with skirmishes).
Started this game playing the dwarf faction, restarted it a few times as I was clueless what to do. Read a few starter guides on dwarfing (dorfing ?) and currently playing on hard mode (campaign difficulty normal). Now in my 22sh turn, 2 lords with their armies and my kingdom consisting of 4 cities. On all sides I'm surrounded with befriended dwarvish nations.


I see some greenskin armies roam the earth but they are too quick to intercept with my own armies (they tend to run away) so at the moment I sit here in my little kingdom and wonder what to do next and actually grow a bit bored (I want to fight orcs but like I said, they run away).


Is it a good idea to go a bit south, conquer some greenskin village (although I can't connect it to my own kingdom due to dwarvish neighbours). Or perhaps I declare war on the dwarves next door and try to expand ? Or do I have to garrison my armies and wait for the things to come?


Please let me know what is a good thing to do next !

[PrinceofPersia]

Welcome to TW games! They can be an addictive game that can easily consume hours of your life.

In regards to your post, the Dwarfs are one of the easier faction to play, as they can form alliances and trade agreements quick. What I did with my Dwarf campaign was to get a complete province straight away. The settlements are pretty easy to take, who have minimal armies protecting them. After securing that first province I made a rush towards NE province ( I can't remeber the name) but it is very good piece of land to take as it yields gold and some mineral (which makes it the richest province to acquire as the dwarfs). I sent one stack north to capture this settlement, while making a new stack from my southern campaign, taking all the provinces from the Northern World/Mountain Edge/Zhufbar/the Silver something, and all the way down to the greenskin realm. IT is also worth attacking the greenskins pretty quick, as if left unchecked they can grow fairly big quick and then you will have the waaagggghhh to deal with, which can be pretty hard if you are not an experienced player. The dwarfs are also the easiest faction to manage during battle...just select the formation and leave them be....they will usually require no further micro management and will hold their lines until victory.

[Deztro]

​Thanks for the tip ! Expanding is the keyword then.It doesn't matter that my soon to be new conquered villages are not connected with my already formed kingdom then ? (besides more borders to guard) or is that something that will probably straightens up in the long run ?

[Gavani]

Welcome to TW games! They can be an addictive game that can easily consume hours of your life.

In regards to your post, the Dwarfs are one of the easier faction to play, as they can form alliances and trade agreements quick. What I did with my Dwarf campaign was to get a complete province straight away. The settlements are pretty easy to take, who have minimal armies protecting them. After securing that first province I made a rush towards NE province ( I can't remeber the name) but it is very good piece of land to take as it yields gold and some mineral (which makes it the richest province to acquire as the dwarfs). I sent one stack north to capture this settlement, while making a new stack from my southern campaign, taking all the provinces from the Northern World/Mountain Edge/Zhufbar/the Silver something, and all the way down to the greenskin realm. IT is also worth attacking the greenskins pretty quick, as if left unchecked they can grow fairly big quick and then you will have the waaagggghhh to deal with, which can be pretty hard if you are not an experienced player. The dwarfs are also the easiest faction to manage during battle...just select the formation and leave them be....they will usually require no further micro management and will hold their lines until victory.

The above is completely the way to go.

I would just add that another advantage to this approach is this opens up trade to two dwarven factions that will protect that side and ally with you quickly. Even early on you should be able to field two stacks to send down south to start taking out the orcs. Don't worry about the fact that your territory isn't linked up as later you can confederate to gain complete control.

The major advantage of the dwarves is that early on you can focus your efforts in one direction and link up with other factions to gang up on the orc scum.

Enjoy.

[Deztro]

Thanks for the quick response guys !
Right, I send my task force army off then and make sure they bash some orc skulls in your names

[PrinceofPersia]

​Thanks for the tip ! Expanding is the keyword then.It doesn't matter that my soon to be new conquered villages are not connected with my already formed kingdom then ? (besides more borders to guard) or is that something that will probably straightens up in the long run ?

I am naturally an aggressive player and like getting my finances and armies growing straightaway. Luckily for the dwarfs the mountainous regions have already set out your path of conquest for you. I call it the 'Highway to hell'.
The formula for ALL Total War games is the same. Land = Money = Armies = Land. You perhaps can turtle with Dwarfs and take things slow, after all Dwarfs are the ultimate faction for a defensive style play with the units they have. Maybe grabbing the first complete province and then develop it would be ok, However this will just give the opposition the time also to develop their armies. Greenskin faction is all about high numbers. Even the most basic of Dwarf unit are sturdy enough to face Greenskins, but their number can overwhelm you and if they are given time they will expand quickly.

Good luck Comrade!

[RGA]

1. Go for all settlements with gold mines (there are several)
2. I mean, just go there
3. ???
4. Swim in money

[econ21]

One thing to bear in mind is that your friendly dwarven neighbours will sooner or later be willing to confederate with you. Often they do it if the orcs are beating them up, or just because they like you so much. They can often do a lot of the dirty work of conquering the badlands for you.

Be wary of becoming neighbours with the VC, though. They can be a menace. Better to let the northern dwarves be a lonely buffer state between you and the VC, than risk a 2 front war (before the orcs are conquered).

[Ichon]

Dwarfs currently are the closest to boring faction in TW due to the map. If you get the DLC that allows you to play as Clan Angrund that is very different campaign if you want it to be and quite fun to me. I do expect Dwarfs will be very interesting with map expansions and addition of Skaven.

Still all that said the Dwarf early campaign can be quite fun depending on how Greenskins and Vampires do. I've had very aggressive Greenskins expand to 30 regions in under 30 turns and have Vampires conquer the Border Princes and most of the Empire in the first 50 turns- trying to fight 5-6 Vampire armies loaded with Terrorgheists, heroes, Blood Knights, etc can be a challenge with Dwarfs on higher difficulty levels.

[Deztro]

Ok I restarted the game because I think I screwed too many things up. Now I'm at turn 36, my two dwarven allies protect the borders north and west. I'n the meantime I make sure to keep the empire happy and at the moment cleaning out Orc scum in the south. I have two hero's at the moment that acts as scout/city damager (no assasin because the fail miserably, probably their skill level needs to go up a bit) so I embedded my Thane in my main army to have his skill a bit upped.


At the moment I have two armies led by their lords (both around level 10).


Is it a good idea to have one or two more lords/armies then these two ? I can handle the enemies at the moment but I'm afraid when the hits the fan (hello Chaos ?) that I have to form armies with newbie recruits and a fresh lord that can't handle those veteran enemies.

[Gavani]

I wouldn't worry about Chaos too much. They tend to focus on the human factions. I usually concentrate on consolidating the south. The only thing you have to be prepared for is when Archaon comes the Bjornling (not sure I spelt that right) will do a naval invasion from the south west with a couple of stacks but as soon as you have beaten them (usually pretty easy) you can move your armies north to take on the main chaos faction helping what's left of the empire and human nations. Just build armies based on your economic situation and you can normally outnumber the chaos hordes and beat them back.

[Deztro]

Again thank you for your quick response ! This forum (and the people on it) are cool !

[LestaT]

I would suggest not to confederate until chaos is defeated. Try to keep as many faction alive even they declare war on you. Make them vassals rather than destroy them altogether so that they can fight chaos for you.

After Achaon is dead, you can declare total war to all.

[Deztro]

Another question; how do you guys manage to keep track of all your armies and heroes ? I compare it with another game, Civilization; each turn all your units are selected automatically one by one so you can decide what to do with them; you can move them or press space so skip this turn, that goes on until you end your turn.In TWW I notice that I often forgot to move a unit (mostly a hero) the last turn. For a few armies and hero it's manageable but when you have a lot of them it's quite hard.Do you guys have a solution (perhaps a mod?) for this ?

[econ21]

Another question; how do you guys manage to keep track of all your armies and heroes ?

The best thing is probably to consult the forces drop-down list (top right of the interface). It shows you all your armies and heroes, with a bar for their movement points - blacked out if exhausted. Consulting that is probably the quickest, most systematic way of checking you have moved everything you want to. I often used it as WRE in Attila, where you have to manage a large realm. With Warhammer, I use it less as I only have a few armies, although like you, I do sometimes forget about the odd hero.

[Sir Sloaks]

As econ21 said use the UI drop down list to your advantage to manage your armies etc

[Totalheadache]

Up the diff as soon as you can! Very hard I find is pretty rewarding.

[Deztro]

Ah, it's all in the GUI ! Another lesson learned, thnx guys !