What's wrong with Dark Elves in 1.5

[Corvin]

Okay this topic will be for DE.
I would like to ask you whats wrong with DE in newish 1.5.
I know that 1.5 is still in lets fix this process but...
The economy for DE is dead.
It was far from okay in 1.4.4 but it was going slowly up and up.
Here in 1.5 you will slowly die as DE while enemy will spam stack on you one after another...
I'm not kidding, I was testing DE for 2 days now both on VH/VH and M/M.
And the only thing to go is playing viking style going for empty AI towns burning and runing back to home cause there is already few full enemy stack comming your way.
I never experienced anything like this in 1.4.4
Is this should be like that?
Cause playing as chaos now or chaotic dwarves undivided or normal dwarves from south is a joke and easy to play as a goblin pie.
While playing as DE now its a nightmare. I love challenges but this is a bit not fair vs other factions.
I can nuke one stack of AI after another but I got enough of that already in third age.
And still at some point you will end zerged.
Btw I thought mages are unique? Cause now I see archmages in every enemy stack.
Same Ice mages in Kislevish stacks.
Did I just got a campaign corruption? cause I'm very confused at this point.

Please....
Im a bit tired and with crazy headaches, so I may be a bit grim.
But still. I would like any of you who loved playing DE in 1.4.4 same as me, and was not going only for those boring and easy to play factions like chaos or empire, to share experience with me from DE campaign 1.5 campaign or High elves cause they are suffering from the same issues.

Right now the only way to survive is to play viking style for me.
No matter if I do this on Vh/Vh or M/M.
Only difference is that battles are lasting longer.
Stack spam is still the same.

I love the new changes in 1.5 but I hate how one factions are far above other ones.
Its like you want to play for wining, play as chaos or empire, if you want to die slowly take DE.
And yes I'm anoyed as hell at this point but I refuse to play with chaos/empire for easy win....

I'm going back to this 1.5 and I will do more testing I will reset campaign again and see how it will roll now. Even tho I already did that twice.
I will try to make short vid with some explanations its always easier to see how things are going on map.

Oh and please give me your point of view.
Cheers.

[Mr.InTeLeX]

Playing DE in 1.5 is very fun for me. Intercepts high elf armies while they're still in the sea, raid chaos, dwarf and rebel village, sack their settlements or kill em all bah blah.

That should be how the faction play, both lore-wise and gameplay-wise. Being a dark elf commander, you have a damned soul and want to plunder and enslave everyone just for wealth and fun. Also, the faction's gameplay mechanic is similar to that of Europeans in vanilla american campaign, where you invade, sack and colonize certain settlement.

PS.I'm playing on VH/VH

[Corvin]

Oh dear, the elves on sea are not a problem I'm destroying them before they are able to get to the land like HUUUUGe stack of their armies are just dying underwater.
Those are not the problem
Problm is spam stack from the land. check this vid
http://www.youtube.com/user/Drothen?feature=mhee
I'm sorry that I'm grim moody there but thats cause of fever and bad day.
Still you will see nice clear picture.
To push back all this spam of stack from the land the economy is not even close to sustain retraining even.
This is VH/VH. And I'm quite good with battles, so I'm taking minimal loses and wining where after autorsolve my army would be dust.
The bigest issue its just economy.
At some point there is nothing to raid/stack.
Btw the funniest part is that Dark Elves campaign overall is easier while playing on VH cause your allies can hold longer. like slanesh or tzeen. still even after a while they will end dead from high elf spam. like theezn on my map.
I'm also playing the same tactic as you do. Still retraining units and gathering gold from raiding and sacking its not going together. The economy that is crawling all the time. Even after capturing mines from eastern dwarven castle.
I have no idea maybe its something wrong with my campaign. Cause I never saw sutch things in 1.4.4 while playing DE many times.
I'm gonna reset this campaign tomorrow, hmm or maybe I reinstall. Bah I'm confused totaly.

[The Despondent Mind]

Stack spam is always an problem .

[wassabi]

one thing i would do is try not to spread my forces too much, dont go attacking kislev and high elves at once and concentrate your forces..if you have to give up a settlement to do that then do it

[Corvin]

aye, this is what I'm doing, I'm focusing only on kislev and only when they are confused and they are leaving some towns half empty and taking their huge stacks for battles vs chaos.
The high elves is another story, I dont attack them, they are attacking me.
Cause even from script one stack of tzeen army is unable to hold vs 3 stacks of HE army(from script I guess) on west side from DE castle.
When they will nuke the tzeen and they will, then its the time to pack stuff and move out. (and with burning some of HE unguarded cities, their lost capital like that, and after one turn they took it back but it was in flames already and we were sailing off).
I tested the more of DE campaign last night and today.
I also decided that I will do some rolling with it for Lets play to show it to those peoples that were asking for DE campaign.
Also I will do this in 1.5 to test it even more. Campaign will probably die from CTD at some point but I want to do it. So far its fine.
Still I can say for sure Dark Elves campaign is one of hardest campaign to play at the very beginning, not only compared to other factions but also compared to DE from 1.4.4.
Still I like that, I can feel them as underdogs at the very beginning but will see later on... Time and patience will show.

[Klierowski]

As i watched many of you'r movies i saw that u are not best mtw2 player... maiby u shoud play on lower settings ?.

[Timorfeys]

As i watched many of you'r movies i saw that u are not best mtw2 player... maiby u shoud play on lower settings ?.

Worst you mean.

[Corvin]

Nope Kilerowski, it was not the difficulty issue, I already solved that problem.
It was Not patched 1.5 version with old map and broken script, it could be cause of corrupted filles after installation.
I reinstalled this time from Gig version + added all patches. Now the stack spam from script is gone. It is still but its not spaming like crazy as it was before.
DE campaign is going now on VH/VH.
And also keep in mind that recording stuff and doing commentaries at the same time for me, its a bit different from solo playing, when I can focus on micromanaging.
Then things are totaly different.

PS.
Oh and add to that that people want to see zoom in units from close for show off... (so even less micromanaging), a lot of those... and for making intros later on... and so watched campaign can be something more rather than watching small units from hyper space, people dont like to watch small units from hyper space, they like to watch lots of fighters stabing lots of other fighters from a very close range distance, otherwise they will send messages like "DO MORE ZOOMZ!", that is very unplesant. I hope you can see my point.)

[Gigantus]

The only change in the original script of version 1.5 that I made is the addition of the 'Hide the User Interface' script part. Maybe you just had bad luck in that campaign with the random number counters that trigger the spawns...

[Corvin]

Hmmm I have no idea then Gigantus.
But I when I was testing the first 1.5 version, every time it was the same. Even after reseting campaigns many times.
After installing your version with linked patches and fixes it was fine. The spawn was reasonable.
I got even capital repositioned to the castle location, from the start of the new campaign, before it was in that northen camp.
So that version not only changed the AI stack spawn for me, but also the capital location.
And I tested your version + patches about 3 times for first 20 turns for the Dark Elves. So I dont know if it was bad luck before, then it was crazy bad luck.
But now its really fine.

[Gigantus]

It could be the updated faction_standings file in the second patch - but that is the one from the official 1.5 fix. Nothing else I could think of, but nevertheless nice to hear that it is improved.

[Orcfan]

Is there perhaps a way to manually edit the script to lower or remove the stack spamming? I believe there is a campaing_script.txt file somewhere that can be altered.

I'm not sure what you would have to change though. Good luck mate.

[Gigantus]

Is there perhaps a way to manually edit the script to lower or remove the stack spamming? I believe there is a campaing_script.txt file somewhere that can be altered.

I'm not sure what you would have to change though. Good luck mate.

That is indeed the file that needs modifying. Have a look into it to discover the complexity of the whole thing....

[Corvin]

I found one thing for sure... It is not worth of killing scripted AI stacks. I did the thing in DE campaign. Killing friking huge elite stack with my basic soldiers. On the next turn AI spamed 2x stronger army near their camp. with 2 x Arch Mages. 2x AM = 20 instant firing reloading cannons with crazy morale shock. It is Overkill for any army...
The thing to deal with (for instance in this case High Elves), is to 'not' kill their scripted spams with elites, but to burn their towns That HE western camp must be burned otherwise after everytime you nuke his scripted stack next stack will spawn on next turn near their capital/camp... I killed One of their heavy elite full as crazy stack... then I killed the second stack in Town defense when I was testing more of the campaign today. (It was that stack with 20x Arch Mages. - If those would be Ice mages I would be dead cause Ice mages are mortars. Arch Mages are cannons so they were unable to nuke my soldierts behind the walls. and I killed them at the gate in melee). Heroic Victory it was.... still on next turn I felt like it was just crap... when I saw same stack spawned again near their western camp.
My only conclusion is, high elves in DE campaign are breeding faster than rabbits. Mages are no longer unique as they were in 1.4.4, it is normal for me now when I see them doubled with numbers. like 2x 10 AM in one stack.
And finall warning is (and peoples were telling me that), just avoid scripted armies at all cost. Dont fight them, try to trick AI into abandoning their towns/Capitals and then burn. Because if they will lose their main lets say Camp or capital the script that is spawning them because their town or capital is present is no longer working.
This is my only solution for those 'defending scripted stacks'. For other scripted armies that will spawn at some points of the campaign it is a different story. Those you have to kill I guess.

I'm enjoying the Dark Elven campaign as hell, but.. there are some points in this 1.5 like those two battles against full elites and crazy overkill spawn of Arch mages, heroic victory just to see that on next turn there is exactly the same stack, free spawned near their camp... and at those points you will feel cheated. Still keep working and you will find solution how to deal with those script stacks.
Oh and one more thing that I also found is, when you will burn and take High elven western camp and their main camp without touching their stacks, they will freeze on the map. Seriously those 'scripted defenders elite stacks' they will freeze and they will stay like that for the rest of the game without moving, even if their town is easy to recapture. It feels like you cheated them, but they say fight fire with fire.
Thats it for now, if I will find something more I will give ya a call.

[Orcfan]

This almost perfectly describes my situation with the Orcs. There isn't really much else to say, other than that it is impossible to gain ground and the victories feel extremely unrewarded.

Try this link...

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=529207

Lord Baal was kind enough to offer an edited script that reduces the number of random stacks appearing. I'm going to try it out tonight and see how it works.

[Corvin]

@Orcfan, Meh, not yet, I dont want to use this. As I'm doing Lets play also for Dark Elven Campaign and I dont want to start from the begining again. I want to see how far I can go with faction that should not be played on Vh/Vh in 1.5. as peoples were writing in AI Stack topic.
For now it's 'okay' I'm fighting fire with fire. HE on my western map are done, also their capital is in flames at this very moment. I just ignored scripted defenders and took their towns burned everything that I don't need for myself, and now defenders script is frozen. I can finally do some progression in campaign. Trade is going up as merchant are poping cause of builded markets in all those towns. And we are golden now. Or at least fine.
But... I need to say I don't like the idea of not fighting scripts, cause the next script will pop up from nothingness on the next turn, cause you just nuked the first one. You will be not rewarded for killing scripts. In fact you will be punched harder for doing so.
I remember it was the same in Third Age TW, Isengard campaign vs Rohan for first 40 turns. But it was different story as I was able to allie with Gondor and get peace with Rohan. Then nuke others and focus Rohan. The moral is the same avoiding scripts it is the way to win, or survive if you prefer.
I'm still holding in my DE Vh/Vh, High Elves are done near my capital. Now I'm going to burn few Kislevish towns and then north cause my Allie Slanesh is lazy.
Good luck with your new campaign tho, cheers!

[Orcfan]

You too my friend, have fun!

[TWmadman]

too bad i don't have time anymore to update my Dark Elves Enhanced Mod hehe...

[Leonidas]

There's one thing I want to change for both Elves factions: this nonsense about not being able to recruit during the winter months. I think the Elves, both High and Dark, have mastered the sea long enough to send troop ships during rough weather. How can you edit that in the campaign settings?