The Empire campaign review

[rage313]

Hello,

After playing through 80 turns of The Empire campaign on Hard difficulty i can say the battle AI improved, specially cavalry attacks those chaos marauders and war hounds were doing some great flanking attacks. Diplomacy on hard was as usual for aggressive players "like me" useless since i attacked the other cities of the empire trying to unify it instead of attacking Bretonia. By that turn only Ostermark and Stirland are left which i guess needs 10 more turns. The game itself is challenging since income is always very low and you have to invest in defenses specially you're northern cities. I fended off the first chaos invasion with one stack and a support army to pick off the smaller enemy armies. The things i dislike so far is that you're in constant warfare with no stability and depth for building, and siege battles are not fun since they created awesome cities but you cannot access except a small portion.

But on the plus side, while I'm playing i couldn't stop thinking about what the community will do with game, specially with units since i find it unfair that some core units of the Empire like Chapter knights can be included as paid DLC later.

All in all it is a nice game which like any total war game will be improved by mods.

[Cathal]

Are you battles "click fests" that only last a few minutes?

[saneel]

I also played 70 turns with Empire.

Positive: campaing is challenging, its not that easy to make friends and steam roll across everyone and everything, because of economy.

Negative: Agent spam. You cant stop chaos and vampire agents spam, because they are too strong even if you have yours that are few levels higher. Your biggest enemy are not their armies, but the corruption they spread throug your provinces. I also find lack of building options disturbing.

[geala]

Clickfests? Yes, they are in my opinion, but that is moddable by the kv_rules, battle_entities tables, perhaps a damage revamp. What is more annoying are the agents and the restricted campaign Options. But there is one big bright light few mentioned till now, the guard button is back, so the insane anger I usually have in Attila when my archers walk into melees at least is gone.

[KAM 2150]

Are you battles "click fests" that only last a few minutes?

So far my longest battle with 4 armies and 80 units lasted for about 7.5 minute. Average battle is between 4.5 to 6 minutes, which is the shortest in history of TW games.

[rage313]

Regarding battles yes they're over so quickly i miss Roma Surrectum where you actually had time to hold you're enemy with pikes and charge them from behind, but the combat animations for the cavalry have improved.
I only managed to kill one of the 3 agents that appear to spread chaos corruption, which is really frustrating because i have been trying to kill a 2 level 4 & 5 sorcerers with a level 8 priest and a level 4 witch hunter. I thinks this is a game mechanic to make the game more difficult because since then i have been having constant rebellions which are composed of chaos armies which is cool but is diverting all my resources and armies towards the northern provinces. I am only using the army of Karl Franz to unify the empire and maintaining order in conquered armies. While 2 stacks crushing rebellions and maintaining order.
I just hope i will be able to consolidate my empire and at least be able to afford one more stack before Archoan arrives

[Cathal]

Hmmm. So very quick battles, agent spam that is seemingly impossible to stop (in the Empire campaign), you can't eliminate the faction because you can't take and hold their settlements... It seems to make for a very annoying campaign as the Empire. I wonder how the other races are. It's making me not want this game, since I was already on the fence.

[Markas]

At Turn 85 now, 'The Empire' consists of a not-quite-whole Reikland and Wissenland. With The Broken Nose fought off and Middenland playing ball, I finally have a steady economy but troop-wise I have don't even have mid-tier units. Haven't had any Agent spam but those Chaos Heroes are hard to shift if you don't have experienced ones yourself. Battles are short unless it's played down to the wire with a closely matched foe. Money is really tight and every decision needs to be carefully weighed, wish I'd built up a solid economic base before even thinking about expanding. You really have to keep fighting for loot in battle and ransoming if you build a new army. Raiding is needed too. I tried playing nicey nicey as Karl Franz but it simply didn't work.

After playing through 80 turns of The Empire campaign on Hard difficulty i can say the battle AI improved, specially cavalry attacks those chaos marauders and war hounds were doing some great flanking attacks.

Yeah just fighting the Skaelings atm and they really know how to circle around back and charge your arty. Now I actually have to keep units in reserve.

[CyberianK]

I am currently in turn 70 Empire on LEGENDARY difficulty. I am not sure though if I am able to survive as it is really hard while barbarian ships landed to my west Border Princes and Vampires DOWed me. Empire on Legendary is so much harder than dwarfs or Greenskins. Have not tested Vampires yet but Dwarfs or Greenskins is a walk in the park compared to Empire.

Does anyone have any advice for Diplomacy? I wasn't able to do a single Confederation with Empire unlike the Dwarfs where it seems to be much easier to absorb the other factions.

Some of my biggest pains where actually the two Dwarfs factions to the southwest of the Empire. Early on I had a costly war and later they razed the whole province of Wissenland including Nuln and obliterated the faction I wanted to confederate. Also I wast able to NA-pact them. The option was yellow and said moderate and in the middle of the game I tried to ask for it and gave them 6000 gold and they still did not want it. That seems bugged.

I think I will try again on legendary and this time I try to go for Marienburg early for money and maybe raze those dwarfs to the ground. Anyone has any advice what I could also try?

[emcdunna]

You honestly won't know if you want this game till you watch some "let's plays" on youtube. If it makes you excited as he'll to play, then go buy the game.

There are some downsides, but none that didn't exist in all other total wars.

Also, field battles can be fast, but you really have to act quickly and make the right decisions. There's no time to reorganize your entire battle line to get your units in the right position. This makes deployment far more important, which preserves that tactical aspect of the game.

So even if you fight for 5 minutes, you are probably carefully deciding where to deploy for 5 minutes as well.


Also, battles are no longer so long and boring (20+ minutes) that I feel the need to text or surf the Web while my men are fighting. So in that sense, short battles are a good thing.

Where the battle length really hits you is that you have no time to figure out what units do what, which units can have what strengths and weaknesses. You need to already know everything about your units and your enemy's before you fight.

If you do, the battles aren't too fast. Even if they were fast for you, just play on slow motion mode till you get the hang of it

[Sylla]

I don't understand people saying they can't defeat factions, factions do disappear when their last settlements are conquered and generals are dead. Even if you cannot settle in their lost holds, you can raze them, making sure that they won't come back if it was the last place they owned ... It can however make your enemies stronger if they take over the free lands instead ...

[Cavalier]

Hmmm. So very quick battles, agent spam that is seemingly impossible to stop (in the Empire campaign), you can't eliminate the faction because you can't take and hold their settlements... It seems to make for a very annoying campaign as the Empire. I wonder how the other races are. It's making me not want this game, since I was already on the fence.

There are mods that modify all of the things you listed, released on day 1. I suggest you get it because its really fun actually.

[KAM 2150]

Battle mod from me, now my perception of the game has gone up from 6+ to 7+, just few more patches/mods/expansions and it will be very high

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...5#post14985515

[captainkrunch]

So far at turn 31, its very solid in my opinion so far, just got Halberdiers and have 1 full stack(under Franz) and 1 just over half stack. The game can go very wrong at any moment though, so beware.

[steve1945]

Im on turn 80 as Empire, and I have a few problems but I am having fun. 100% fun so dont get me wrong.

1: Agent Spam is ridiculous. My armies are followed by a constant string of Chaos and previously, vampire agents assassinating or halting them each turn
2: Money. Iv got every money making building I can, and my economy is still crushed under the weight of 5 armies. Iv got 4 provinces, almost every city is tier3 and every settlement has a tier 3 farm/leatherworker whatever it was that gives me more cash. Im even using the tax edict and my economy is still crushed. Im making 70 gold a turn. And its not because my armies are elite, far from it. The most expensive unit I have are 4 Halberdiers and 2 mortars. Its strangling my ability to have armies, and diversify my armies
3: Military Build chain, seems utterly, and needlessly obtuse for no reason. Why do I need to have 3 different training buildings (im ok with this) but also have 3 different buildings in the same province to be able to produce units from them. Blacksmith/Armory should not be required for unit unlocks. It should give weapon/armor buffs. Reiksfort should give garrison. Right now it cost almost 20 thousand gold to unlock Halberdiers and Greatswords and thats unacceptable.
4: Halberdiers seem utterly useless against anything other then monsters. The lack of loose formation and things like shield/spear wall is really disappointing.
5:Confederating the Empire via diplomacy seems to be the fastest way to lose your campaign. What with the sudden incredible deficit of cash, the huge public order negatives, and the fact that every other Empire faction suddenly hates you. Iv tried confederating with Stirland in my first campaign. Did so, had Boris Toddbringer and Nordland AND Marienburg declare war on me. They then proceeded to stomp me into the ground. The best part was how Marienburg had 9 full stack armies and yet only held Marienburg

[captainkrunch]

Im on turn 80 as Empire, and I have a few problems but I am having fun. 100% fun so dont get me wrong.

1: Agent Spam is ridiculous. My armies are followed by a constant string of Chaos and previously, vampire agents assassinating or halting them each turn
2: Money. Iv got every money making building I can, and my economy is still crushed under the weight of 5 armies. Iv got 4 provinces, almost every city is tier3 and every settlement has a tier 3 farm/leatherworker whatever it was that gives me more cash. Im even using the tax edict and my economy is still crushed. Im making 70 gold a turn. And its not because my armies are elite, far from it. The most expensive unit I have are 4 Halberdiers and 2 mortars. Its strangling my ability to have armies, and diversify my armies
3: Military Build chain, seems utterly, and needlessly obtuse for no reason. Why do I need to have 3 different training buildings (im ok with this) but also have 3 different buildings in the same province to be able to produce units from them. Blacksmith/Armory should not be required for unit unlocks. It should give weapon/armor buffs. Reiksfort should give garrison. Right now it cost almost 20 thousand gold to unlock Halberdiers and Greatswords and thats unacceptable.
4: Halberdiers seem utterly useless against anything other then monsters. The lack of loose formation and things like shield/spear wall is really disappointing.
5:Confederating the Empire via diplomacy seems to be the fastest way to lose your campaign. What with the sudden incredible deficit of cash, the huge public order negatives, and the fact that every other Empire faction suddenly hates you. Iv tried confederating with Stirland in my first campaign. Did so, had Boris Toddbringer and Nordland AND Marienburg declare war on me. They then proceeded to stomp me into the ground. The best part was how Marienburg had 9 full stack armies and yet only held Marienburg

Yeah Marienburg has a ridiculously good port early game, starts out at 500 gold per turn and only gets better from there, I would reccomend anyone playing try and crush the Marienburger rebels as soon as possible

[Cathal]

There are mods that modify all of the things you listed, released on day 1. I suggest you get it because its really fun actually.

Yeah, I just read up on some mods. Proper Combat and No Aggressive Agent (is that the name?) mods seem like necessities. I don't know if I want the mod that lets you settle areas you were supposed to not be able to or leave that mechanic in place.

[Grimreapo]

Huh, playing on hard (normally do LEGENDARY but I had no idea how much of a effect magic would have on the game) and all of the Imperial Provinces signed up to me once Chaos had "Risen" and pretty much everyone allied with me once they knew Chaos was coming, first time Chaos had come to my lands I was in a middle of invading the Vampire Counts and had to make peace with then once I had my hands on Western Slyvania. I had the greatest battle in a TW game for years as 4 Imperial Armies clashed with the Everchosen and whilst my Witchhunter was able to stop one of the 3 main chaos lords join he was joined by a something that stomped my army (if the battle was a 1v1 stack I would have won), I need to get around to finish with the Vampire Count as after I signed the peace with them they expanded to the North East having a bunch of settlements where Kiseiv was before Chaos burnt everything down...

I have lots of screenshots but unless asked I wont be posted any as Steam seems to hate WH:TW as all of the shots I took are very blurry (), if anyone has any questions just ask as I am about to wrap my game up...

2: Money. Iv got every money making building I can, and my economy is still crushed under the weight of 5 armies. Iv got 4 provinces, almost every city is tier3 and every settlement has a tier 3 farm/leatherworker whatever it was that gives me more cash. Im even using the tax edict and my economy is still crushed. Im making 70 gold a turn. And its not because my armies are elite, far from it. The most expensive unit I have are 4 Halberdiers and 2 mortars. Its strangling my ability to have armies, and diversify my armies

Did you mouse over the icons at the top bar of the UI? CA placed in some really nice anti-blobbing features that limit both the AI and the player...

[emcdunna]

There are a lot of amazing anti-blob features. For one, the sheer number of AOE damage dealers means blobs are huge targets, and two they finally made it so that units can't infintely stand over each other. Blobs are still possible, but they are far more spread out and realistic looking

[Cavalier]

Yeah, I just read up on some mods. Proper Combat and No Aggressive Agent (is that the name?) mods seem like necessities. I don't know if I want the mod that lets you settle areas you were supposed to not be able to or leave that mechanic in place.

I keep it kinda basic with modding for now but I basically got the No aggressive agent mod, the Weaker Towers mod and Dresdens longer building time mod. I havent tried combat mods yet