HEIR TO SIGMAR - Legendary Empire Long Campaign Victory - Diplomatic route - My thoughts

[userstupidname]

http://imgur.com/hdQfkOU Edit: (The picture is lying a bit, up til just the turns before I had everyone in military alliances, the map went to a red blob as I at the very end confederated two big factions and resettled a destroyed nordland as well as took the middlepart of the empire back from the vc-counts but the campaign was essentially won by alliances and only confederated for the fun of it (Wasn't even that fun as all those provinces were close to rebelling in the end))
Truer picture:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

139 turns in I finally mopped up Sylvania to complete both the short and long victory at the same time.
Campaign presets: No mods Diplomatic route Karl Franz Legendary No savescumming of anysort (I did however need to restart the campaign 3-4 times early on learning the basics of the campaign)
I had a great time with this playthrough, one of my best total war experiences. I decided for this campaign to try to unite the Empire solely or largely by diplomacy. I confederated very little, and regreted those I did. While a confederation with any usually gives you the x/x province occupy/raze/sack goal to get a large cash influx. Mostly it is just trouble, especially on legendary where you need a level 3 inn just to offset the negative public order.
But I regress, I had a blast.


Uniting the Empire
My campaign started out uniting the first province, snabbing the quest to get a battle wizard for the chapter bonus. I then progressed to gift and coddle up all elector counts. Going to war with marienburg and averland who everyone hated. A MASSIVE skaeling invasion wiped nearly half the empire out, with 5 stacks roaming, nearly wiping out nordland, hochland, marienburg, and me. It was a great midgame experience and challenge. This going back to forth, not just quite having the elector counts side, while infighting (especially from ostland and hochland) just made fighting off the skaelings and vargs very difficult while expanding.
All of that changed when I went south to fight for the Ghal Maraz by fighting Greenskins. I had so much epic fun in the badlands, fighting and sacking for the hell of it. Curbing the greenskins with my Karl Franz led army. As I couldn't hold on to anything I just sacked and pillaged, getting huge cash influxes to upgrade heavily back home. Soon tough the greenskins army came together with azhag and ironhide ganging up on me. By hiding with ambush stance I evaded them for a while. However soon I was caught between them, It was azagh and a garrison or ironhide. I picked ironhide, just needing one more win for continuing the questline for the elusive warhammer. The fight was full stack vs full stack with elite units finely sprinkled in both. The fight was massive, karl franz was level 27, ironhide 22. The greenskins army was just about better than mine, however if I could take down ironhide it would easily be my victory.
So it was Franz against ironhide. It was actually very epic, two decked out heroes, franz on deathclaw, ironhide fully upgraded with his quest gear. It came down to a final hit, but alas it was grimgor who fell the swing. Wounding Franz. The army soon disentigrated. My army in the badlands lost, my battlewizard retreating.

Fighting in the badlands

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

However back home everything had changed
All the elector counts and dwarf holds loved me. I could finally get the vaunted defensive and military alliances. Soon forming a web of too powerful empire alliance for any elector count to go up against it, so peace finally reigned between the elector counts. The final few who resisted in time joined up with gifts. This also meant the dwarfs prospered, taking over their home capital, and pushing the greenskins over the steps and further into the corner of the map as you can see in the first picture of the later turns.
During all of this, chaos never were a threat because funnily enough with the empire being so stable and at peace, as soon as chaos arrived they got smashed, absolutely smashed by my empire allies. I didn't have time to face a single chaos army the whole game. Even archaon and the legendary chaos generals got smashed almost instantly. Was hysterical albeit anticlimatic.
The real challenge was the vampire counts, whoever made the corruption spreading mechanic is a genius. The vampire had claimed the southeast corner of the empire, but spreading influence far and wide. Making cities rebel and hard to attack them due to corruption. But with everything else dealt with it was time to attack the formidable stacks of vc counts. The mopping up was the first time ever actually quite fun for a total war series. Mostly due to my first armies, while elite, got smashed due to them all focusing on armor pierceing. And most vc units I faced where anti infantry graveguards who smash halberdiers and to a good extent greatswords. As well as my mortars and handgunners did really little to the skeletons. But with new armies and the inclusion of steamtanks it was time to roll them up. Franz smashing vampire hero after vampire hero.
Finally sylvania was mopped up, and the victory, was Sigmars.


Notes for the campaign:

• Very very fun campaign, very varied, the diplomatic house rule was very very fun. Just going around killing everyone that everyone else hated really made you felt like Franz, playing the elector counts hate for each other and fear for destruction against them. In the end shrewdly uniting them.
• LOVE TO BUILD TALL, staying in one province just building up was great, I felt the relief of not having the feeling to need conquer everything.
• Autoresolve is a bit strong, heroes and large units gets stomped in them. Maybe calculate them as a numbered unit behind the scenes in the code while autoresolve is in play? Or make them take procentual loss of their health depending if it is desicive, phyrric, heroic, devastating, crushing - win/loss?
• Sacking is mighty fun and rewarding. Lots of money gained.
• Friendly AI felt competent, very much so. Allies were incredibly helpful and made logical decisions.
• Enemy AI felt competent, very much so. It was aggressive, didn't let unguarded and weak garrisons just sit there if they could take them. They were competent in battle, in only one battle where they a bit weird standing semi still. But all in all they attacked and defended competently. The large units definitely helped as the game is no longer two phalanxes whit the player always winning the flanks and crushing with an anvil. With large units you instead have the need of prioritizing units as they can just brake through your line. So there is much going on and a lot that needed done.
• Heroes are incredible. I decked out my Franz in personal combat and campaign, obviously the middle path is much better than campaign in many aspects, but much of it is stat buffs and army improvement and I just wanted a fun campaign so I wasn't so bothered and the vampiric and upkeep reduction were too enticing.
• Heroes vs Heroes is awesome, with their large hp damaging attacks each swing feels genuinely have weight behind them.
• The map was great, in every aspect. Maps had really nice elevations and specs. So pretty is the campaign map and the battlemap.
• Building is great, straight forward, logical, the minmaxing is not tedious in rome instead it is fun and rewarding getting those building chains up.
• Provinces finally feel just about right. With the province capital and the small settlements importance felt balanced. Not like in Empire where they can be disregarded if raided, and not like in attila where a little settlement could throw the whole settlement in chaos due to food, sanitation or other superimportant buildings where in it etc etc. Each settlement felt like a good addition, but also weren't a total loss if raided. I enjoyed it.
• Global recruitment is great, the costs to doing it felt like it was balanced neatly.
• Underground battles are great, really different both in style and how they play.
• SIEGES are finally awesome. One can actually lose sieges in this game. The last bit of me nostalging over med 2 sieges is finally gone. Holy the camping at the gate is finally GONE.

Magical ladders was genius, finally the whole city battlemap is under attack rather then a small narrow area. because of the whole wall being assaulted you also win certain sections of the wall but also lose some.
THIS then becomes that those segments try to get back to the center either intercepting or intercepted by the enemy on the way. Or just getting to the center for a final last stand.
The FOCUSED and intensive experience of sieges are incredibly fun. I am loving them, they never felt contrived or like I could game them. (I heard cavalry can do that but I personally had hard time doing that, maybe because my cavalry was always the slowest so I couldn't test the ai) Sieges were fun, spectacular and costly events. It felt like they took not just lessons from shogun 2, but from all total wars and made the first iteration of a siege experience that is new and fresh.

• Agents and agent spam was not as many other claimed bad, at least in my campaign. My agents had low (25ish percent) success change but I also noticed they only have about 1-3 percent chance in dying. Once I learned that I started spamming back to the enemy agents and soon it was even match.

Agents were actually a fun part of the campaign, noticeably corrupting my provinces. They were real agents of chaos and disorder, needing to be dealt with. Of course much is hidden at the get go for the player. I knew with hunter was the assasin due to having a bit of lore knowledge. But a new player might just think it is the military captain or the priest. Witch hunters take a long time to get and even more so getting the assassin perk up.
However once you figured out the agents mechanics it all became an enjoyable experience. Certain heroes reduce enemy heroes chances, certain heroes interact differently with each other, etc etc. I actually liked that high level agents didn't dominate all the time, so you didn't have a factions agents just wiping everyone elses. Agents mostly became more useful, rather then just more powerful.
In the end Agents in this game felt like a little game in itself, rather then an aggravating tacked on mechanic in other games. The hunt between the witch hunter and the vampire who stalks the countryside is real. Agents are finally interacting with the campaign in a meaningful way rather then just with generals.
Also don't forget to boost up your agents with relevant entourage, a fully decked out military captain with 6 burghers/coal burners giving 1+ happiness each goes a long way.

• Game progression was great. At least for me. I always felt like I was on the edge. But also with the focus on the capital never felt like I was out of the picture. With a legendary hero who always come back you finally have a progression even through losses. It wasn't like my WRE attila experience where after two faction leaders died I didn't care anymore. You always gain something even from a loss with a legendary hero. You always come a bit further in the story.
• Quests, love them, love everything with them. Some felt a bit easy, but where a great addition to the game and I hope more of them, many more.
• Missions, where really nice, many felt rewarding and they felt nice.
• Art and style, everything looks great, love the artstyle of the popups.
• Music and sound, love it, was long since great music came along and for me it was a great experience. Karl Franz lonely on the steps in the badlands. Soft music echoing. Mmmmmm
• Optimization, shieses christ, I have a 440 nividia card and everything ran so smoothly. Wow everything.

Complaints

• While lackluster in my campaign I loved CHAOS. The invasions, the corruption, the everything. I wish they were better in autoresolve as their units would have wrecked the empire armies they faced if it was real time.
• Certain things not explained good enough, like what agents do what, quest teleportation. Etc. However I have to say the advisor felt very nice, felt natural and I was genuinely interested in him.
• No variance or uniqueness to the different imperial factions. So had a hard time developing a relation to the different factions.

TLR
Warhammer succeeded in creating a focused and tight gaming experience of Shogun, as well as the grandeur and scope of Rome, a experience I loved and love dearly. I really enjoy playing the game, it had finally some feeling of continual progression in character rather then progression through ever more total war and more conquest.
It felt polished, enjoyable, and most of all it really felt nice that from the get go to get a competent experience fro CA and I will greatly enjoy playing the greenskins next, for sigm.. WAAAGGHHHHHH


Crossposted from Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/co...long_campaign/

[Fanest]

Magical ladders was genius

that is when i stopped reading

basically i see a pattern in such reviews and that pattern is dumbed down = fun

[Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus]

that is when i stopped reading

basically i see a pattern in such reviews and that pattern is dumbed down = fun

Welcome to the club, my friend. You get a free pint to down the sorrow for these are dark times: CA reseased an other game in which they strip features and dumb down their game. This time they sank to a new low: Chaos BLC+ releasing the game with missing animations. I predict that this is the new norm for Total War: Total Clickfest, Total DLC, Total Streamlining.

Part of me suspects that this is mostly SEGA's fault: it is probable that they give CA insane deadlines and ask them to churn up games as fast as possible whilst investing as little as possible. I am also begining to question where did that 40% more budget of Rome 2 went.

[userstupidname]

Welcome to the club, my friend. You get a free pint to down the sorrow for these are dark times: CA reseased an other game in which they strip features and dumb down their game. This time they sank to a new low: Chaos BLC+ releasing the game with missing animations. I predict that this is the new norm for Total War: Total Clickfest, Total DLC, Total Streamlining.

Part of me suspects that this is mostly SEGA's fault: it is probable that they give CA insane deadlines and ask them to churn up games as fast as possible whilst investing as little as possible. I am also begining to question where did that 40% more budget of Rome 2 went.

When I played I never felt like the magical ladders detracted from the experience. Rather it added to it, as the AI and the battle had much better flow. It wasn't more casual as the AI could now be more competent and challenging. I was always talking negatively about magical ladders when I heard the news and thought about the good days of med 2. But replaying even with stainless steel the sieges are just terrible. The manual ladders are just causing so much problems. And it remains in attila and rome. The magical ladder solution while buffing siege towers by giving the units more protection solved a lot of problems, as well as made ladders vs siege towers more distinct roles.

I didn't like the chaos dlc policy, but at least they changed it to be free the first week if you buy it. Also little to unit vs unit animation is great, it helps performance, helps battleflow, and is a welcome change that they went back to med 2 animation unit vs unit style.

[Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus]

When I played I never felt like the magical ladders detracted from the experience. Rather it added to it, as the AI and the battle had much better flow. It wasn't more casual as the AI could now be more competent and challenging. I was always talking negatively about magical ladders when I heard the news and thought about the good days of med 2. But replaying even with stainless steel the sieges are just terrible. The manual ladders are just causing so much problems. And it remains in attila and rome. The magical ladder solution while buffing siege towers by giving the units more protection solved a lot of problems, as well as made ladders vs siege towers more distinct roles.


I didn't like the chaos dlc policy, but at least they changed it to be free the first week if you buy it. Also little to unit vs unit animation is great, it helps performance, helps battleflow, and is a welcome change that they went back to med 2 animation unit vs unit style.

Tibia honest, the bad thing about pocket ladders is that they function similarly to torches but worse: now your walls are useless, the enemy can simply climb over them. If they really wanted to make a good design choice with them, the ladders would have to be built, like in older titles. We already have improvements such as the banner system: they could have done something similar for ladders, at the beginning of a siege you get to distribute the ladders you built. Only those units in battle will be able to scale the walls... and only once.

[nameless]

Tibia honest, the bad thing about pocket ladders is that they function similarly to torches but worse: now your walls are useless, the enemy can simply climb over them. If they really wanted to make a good design choice with them, the ladders would have to be built, like in older titles. We already have improvements such as the banner system: they could have done something similar for ladders, at the beginning of a siege you get to distribute the ladders you built. Only those units in battle will be able to scale the walls... and only once.

Wait what? I just did a siege battle where the AI had 4 mortars but waited 3-4 turns building towers and rams.

1 tower was destroyed but the 2nd made it to the wall and there was fighting on the walls.

Both rams were destroyed but soon eventually the wall crumbled under the mortars and the AI poured into it.

I don't recall any units actually going for ladders or is it a last resort thing?

My campaign started out uniting the first province, snabbing the quest to get a battle wizard for the chapter bonus. I then progressed to gift and coddle up all elector counts. Going to war with marienburg and averland who everyone hated. A MASSIVE skaeling invasion wiped nearly half the empire out, with 5 stacks roaming, nearly wiping out nordland, hochland, marienburg, and me. It was a great midgame experience and challenge. This going back to forth, not just quite having the elector counts side, while infighting (especially from ostland and hochland) just made fighting off the skaelings and vargs very difficult while expanding.
All of that changed when I went south to fight for the Ghal Maraz by fighting Greenskins. I had so much epic fun in the badlands, fighting and sacking for the hell of it. Curbing the greenskins with my Karl Franz led army. As I couldn't hold on to anything I just sacked and pillaged, getting huge cash influxes to upgrade heavily back home. Soon tough the greenskins army came together with azhag and ironhide ganging up on me. By hiding with ambush stance I evaded them for a while. However soon I was caught between them, It was azagh and a garrison or ironhide. I picked ironhide, just needing one more win for continuing the questline for the elusive warhammer. The fight was full stack vs full stack with elite units finely sprinkled in both. The fight was massive, karl franz was level 27, ironhide 22. The greenskins army was just about better than mine, however if I could take down ironhide it would easily be my victory.
So it was Franz against ironhide. It was actually very epic, two decked out heroes, franz on deathclaw, ironhide fully upgraded with his quest gear. It came down to a final hit, but alas it was grimgor who fell the swing. Wounding Franz. The army soon disentigrated. My army in the badlands lost, my battlewizard retreating.

However back home everything had changed
All the elector counts and dwarf holds loved me. I could finally get the vaunted defensive and military alliances. Soon forming a web of too powerful empire alliance for any elector count to go up against it, so peace finally reigned between the elector counts. The final few who resisted in time joined up with gifts. This also meant the dwarfs prospered, taking over their home capital, and pushing the greenskins over the steps and further into the corner of the map.
During all of this, chaos never were a threat because funnily enough with the empire being so stable and at peace, as soon as chaos arrived they got smashed, absolutely smashed by my empire allies. I didn't have time to face a single chaos army the whole game. Even archaon and the legendary chaos generals got smashed almost instantly. Was hysterical albeit anticlimatic.
The real challenge was the vampire counts, whoever made the corruption spreading mechanic is a genius. The vampire had claimed the southeast corner of the empire, but spreading influence far and wide. Making cities rebel and hard to attack them due to corruption. But with everything else dealt with it was time to attack the formidable stacks of vc counts. The mopping up was the first time ever actually quite fun for a total war series. Mostly due to my first armies, while elite, got smashed due to them all focusing on armor pierceing. And most vc units I faced where anti infantry graveguards who smash halberdiers and to a good extent greatswords. As well as my mortars and handgunners did really little to the skeletons. But with new armies and the inclusion of steamtanks it was time to roll them up. Franz smashing vampire hero after vampire hero.
Finally sylvania was mopped up, and the victory, was Sigmars

My campaign is opposite of yours.

I turtled up and tried gifting the other electors and dwarves to no avail but once Chaos started coming in and I took the fight to them they all started loving me.

The Greenskins have more or less been beaten down along with the Vampires but the main issue are the Vlads and Skarlings coming down south and chasing their damn mini armies across the map. most of the provinces have been destroyed so I've been forced to slowly expand while trying to keep my economy intact and building up the defenses before moving onwards.

That being said what kind of army are you fielding?

I use 5 Greatswords, 2 halbredeirs, 2 shield spearmen, 2 steam tanks and one hellstorm rocket with 6 outriders. The Chaos armies consist of so many missile cavalry I'm forced to use the outriders to have some sort of counter. the Tanks are good for holding the flanks and drawing attention but there are times when I feel my greatswords just melt for no good reason....

[Grimreapo]

are the Vlads and Skarlings coming down south and chasing their damn mini armies across the map

As keep on saying, Witchhunters are god tier when dealing with these stacks as they can block them from moving and you can finish them off...

Also I think think for the Empire and when it comes to level up generals, the middle Red lines has some CRAZY buff for units under the general as you level up the basic Swordsmen and Halberds to deal out some decent damage...

[Humble Warrior]

that is when i stopped reading

basically i see a pattern in such reviews and that pattern is dumbed down = fun

I was about to post the same. How in any kind of logic is that genius?

Just shows the kind of player CA is focusing on- Those to whom short-cuts and cop-outs are now referred to as `genius`.

[userstupidname]

I was about to post the same. How in any kind of logic is that genius?

Just shows the kind of player CA is focusing on- Those to whom short-cuts and cop-outs are now referred to as `genius`.

I don't really see an effort for conversation here. The magical ladders is in essence equal to the game decision of shogun 2 wall scaling.
Attila/rome and med 2 playthroughs where laughably easy, even on legendary. The settlements where not grand battles about the city, but left to the best chokepoints often in the city square in a settlement or attacking
one predictable point in the wall if it is a siege. I do not believe the ladders to be anything special, but rather I think it is genius and I personally like that they return to shogun 2 siege style. With the grand wall element of the Huge city battles of med 2. The on the go ladders makes the whole wall a battle, rather then a small narrow point in the wall.

I think personally the shogun design choice to sieges that is prominent now is the best of the series over med2, rome, etc.

[Fanest]

Attila/rome and med 2 playthroughs where laughably easy, even on legendary.

Attila and RTW2 on legendary are whole difficulty level apart if not more, while MTW2 doesnt even have legendary ....

[Markas]

I don't really see an effort for conversation here. The magical ladders is in essence equal to the game decision of shogun 2 wall scaling.
Attila/rome and med 2 playthroughs where laughably easy, even on legendary. The settlements where not grand battles about the city, but left to the best chokepoints often in the city square in a settlement or attacking

In 150 turns I've fought two siege battles. Personally I think Magic ladders are a complete non-issue (I think I've seen them in action once) except it seems to many that don't have the game. Siege battles are simply not that common. I've yet to hear also how their inclusion is dumbing down the game- is there Ye Olde Ladder Tactic I'm not aware of that impinges tactics between when troops set off and get to the wall?

As for difficulty... Well, there wasn't any difficulty in Med 2 (Often due to the horrendous bugs). Losing a battle would have required a high-tier steam achievement itself.

[Holy.Death]

that is when i stopped reading

basically i see a pattern in such reviews and that pattern is dumbed down = fun

You see what you want to see. "Streamlined" doesn't not always equal "dumbed down" just as "complex" (or complicated) does not always equal "deep".

[Grimreapo]

I pretty much have the same feelings! That said, the Norse men had smashed Middenhiem and all of the Northern Eletor Counts, so I had to take on Chaos head on and face the Ever-chosen and the The Ever-Watcher (I say cant what it is due to spoilers) in a single battle where 4 imperial armies smashed into them but where your Franz fell down to down to the ironhide mine had felled the Ever Chosen by himself!

I did mine on hard (I want to get a feel for magic and heroes for doing Leg) but man, such turns and and twists in my campaign as had just started an invasion of VCs when Chaos first started showing up, I had to make a peace with the CVs as I then shoved all of my units to the North, a few turns after the peace deal the VCs DoW on me and I was able to rush Franz to smash 2 of their armies. This time I forced peace on them and a non-aggression pact, so unable to expand into my lands Mannfried did something both insane and awesome, he started to expand north into where Kislev where Chaos had wasted everything repopulating it with the undead, one of the reaosn why I was able to take on the brunt of the chaos forces was them fighting the Vampire Counts, it was so cool...

http://s33.postimg.org/5wyi5jsfi/20160526104117_1.jpg#

I have screenshots of everything but steam sucks with screenshotting this game...

[CyberianK]

@userstupidname

Very impressive and nicely written. Currently doing Legendary runs with Empire too have two games where i made it to turn 70 and then I made some stupid mistakes and I decided to start again (wasn't really defeated but wanted to restart).
I don't get how you said you did the diplomatic route but never confederated anyone? Isn't that the diplomatic route? How did you unite the empire if you did not conquer or confederate them?

Also you made no mention of the Chaos invasion?

I have to say that I really have my problem with the Skaelig turns 60-70. They sail into the river Reik and siege my cities and if I move an army over there they just evade me and come back later. Usually when that happens with other enemies earlier I catch them with a fast army from the other side but that isn't really possible with Skaelig as I would have to come from the high sea. And they have enough to attack with 4 stackjs from the west, 4 from the north and 4 from the east. Would be interestzed how you handled that.
I have to say Greenskins and Dwarfs is so much easier than Empire on Legendary. I am happy that it is very challenging though (not using Autores centric army) had some great fun.

[Grimreapo]

@userstupidname

Very impressive and nicely written. Currently doing Legendary runs with Empire too have two games where i made it to turn 70 and then I made some stupid mistakes and I decided to start again (wasn't really defeated but wanted to restart).
I don't get how you said you did the diplomatic route but never confederated anyone? Isn't that the diplomatic route? How did you unite the empire if you did not conquer or confederate them?

Also you made no mention of the Chaos invasion?

I have to say that I really have my problem with the Skaelig turns 60-70. They sail into the river Reik and siege my cities and if I move an army over there they just evade me and come back later. Usually when that happens with other enemies earlier I catch them with a fast army from the other side but that isn't really possible with Skaelig as I would have to come from the high sea. And they have enough to attack with 4 stackjs from the west, 4 from the north and 4 from the east. Would be interestzed how you handled that.
I have to say Greenskins and Dwarfs is so much easier than Empire on Legendary. I am happy that it is very challenging though (not using Autores centric army) had some great fun.

Witchhunters are the most important heroes for the Empire, not only are they good for killing agents you can use them to block armies and allow you to kill the Northmen scum with ease...

[CyberianK]

Witchhunters are the most important heroes for the Empire, not only are they good for killing agents you can use them to block armies and allow you to kill the Northmen scum with ease...

Yeah I think that was my problem as I built the Sigmar shrine only in the last slots when Altdorf was Tier 5 I probably should have built it earlier.

[userstupidname]

@userstupidname

Very impressive and nicely written. Currently doing Legendary runs with Empire too have two games where i made it to turn 70 and then I made some stupid mistakes and I decided to start again (wasn't really defeated but wanted to restart).
I don't get how you said you did the diplomatic route but never confederated anyone? Isn't that the diplomatic route? How did you unite the empire if you did not conquer or confederate them?

Also you made no mention of the Chaos invasion?

I have to say that I really have my problem with the Skaelig turns 60-70. They sail into the river Reik and siege my cities and if I move an army over there they just evade me and come back later. Usually when that happens with other enemies earlier I catch them with a fast army from the other side but that isn't really possible with Skaelig as I would have to come from the high sea. And they have enough to attack with 4 stackjs from the west, 4 from the north and 4 from the east. Would be interestzed how you handled that.
I have to say Greenskins and Dwarfs is so much easier than Empire on Legendary. I am happy that it is very challenging though (not using Autores centric army) had some great fun.

Thank you! Yes sorry I should have added that and clarified.

On the diplomatic route, the long victory conditions only need one to have someone you have a military alliance with to own the provinces needed. I.e the image I supplied is quite misleading as it shows me owning everything. Really the map was owned by the different factions the whole game, I just confederated the two largest the last 12-14 turns to get the chapter objectives that require you to occupy/sack/raze X amount of provinces for the gold. The nordland part of the map was razed by skaelings so that I just peacefully occupied.

Then a chunk of in the middle was occupied by sylvania which I could then conquer freely. But yes I actually did confederate! however on legendary it is quite not worth it because all those new territories have such public order problems so costs qutie abit destroying buildings and building happy buildings.


Tl:dr: confederated Nordland and Nuln (what was left of wissenland at that point) and felt it only hampered me as AI armies were quite competent and was better left of self managed. So the rest were instead only bound by military alliances, which is okey to get the long victory route. Only the turns before the end did I confederate and conquer sylvanias part of the empire to become a big red blob you see in the picture.

Chaos did invade! But I never got to fight any chaos stack at all. As the empire was at peace due to me making nearly every empire member a part of a big military alliance net, they all had armies standing around doing nothing. When Chaos showed up they all suddenly had one enemy and all straight up bumrushed and utterly murdered the severely outnumbered chaos stacks. It was this great feeling of ''united we are invincible'' so my diplomatic side of me was overjoyed. However the end showdown with chaos, meeting them on the field of battle was sadly not to be leaving the warmongering side of me a bit sad hahahaha.



Skealings were actually in my playthrough dealt with at the wall of Altdorf. Where 4 stacks descended against my garrison and another army. If I remember right they actually won the siege and sacked Altdorf, but were so weakened that Franz who quite werent there in time mopped them quickly. The skealings were not a threat after that. Of course I lost basically the whole north coast and marienburg fighting them. But their naked marauders and hounds were quite weak in the siege. However it sounds like I had an easier time as they didn't sail more south than nordlands where they landed. But yes I couldn't catch them either so I basically let them siege me.

Oh however I did liberally use ambush in my playthrough which won me a great deal of fronts. Both by eliminating armies but also to hide armies from too powerful enemy stacks. It helped eliminate some of the skaelings.
I also recommend lightning strike in the campaign tree so you can take out armies without them being able to call in reinforcements.

Hmm that so? Going to actually try greenskins or dwarfs next, see how it plays out on legendary.

[CyberianK]

Chaos did invade! But I never got to fight any chaos stack at all. As the empire was at peace due to me making nearly every empire member a part of a big military alliance net, they all had armies standing around doing nothing. When Chaos showed up they all suddenly had one enemy and all straight up bumrushed and utterly murdered the severely outnumbered chaos stacks. It was this great feeling of ''united we are invincible'' so my diplomatic side of me was overjoyed. However the end showdown with chaos, meeting them on the field of battle was sadly not to be leaving the warmongering side of me a bit sad hahahaha.

That is VERY VERY interesting. In my campaign the AI nations are totally incompetent all getting destroyed by CHaos (realls mostly the norse tribes though). THat really seems to be because they are fighting each other and whats left of the Vampire Counts at the same time then. I think in my current campaign try I will go for some alliances then and kill the counts. I think in my campaign they did not attack Altdorf because I had Marienburg and even Brettonian sities to the west of it. It would have been so nice if they attacked Altdorf as that garrison plus towers there is just godlike.

Thanks for this insight.

[userstupidname]

Hmmm I tend to turtle and build up. I pretty much conquered the province and then tried building up my economy and infrastructure before moving out. May have to be more aggressive then but the Greenskins weren't really out there to begin with and to go south would suffer diplomatic penalties.

Hmmm what was your standard tactic then? Halbrediers just hold the line while the enemy crashes into them? How do they hold up to the anti-infantry units? Artillery on the flanks then with Tanks? How did you deal with missile cavalry? Those are freaking annoying when that chaos army shows up with like 6-7 missile axemen.



yeah just trying to sort that out.

So they are always going to keep coming then?

Well I never really designed an army fight chaos, my allies simply smashed them so quickly, however I would probably have gone with 6 halberdiers, 4 reiks, 3-4 - volley guns, 2 cannons, 4 greatswords, and steamtank and battlewizard.

I mostly stuck to halberdiers and handgunners, cheap and suited my purposes, holding and delivering ap damage against the other empire factions. My army fighting greenskins where also such an army as it went there on a whim.
And before halberdiers, loads of swordsmen, cheap, effective.

However to add, franz was decked out in the dueling/personal damage tree, so he wrecked quickly enemy generals to then rout and win the day.


But ye, halb holding line, handgunners flanking, karl franz dueling generals in epic battles. With a firewizard raining aoe, with at least 3 mortars or 3-5 artypieces shooting.
But I do want to add that I focused so much on diplo, that loads of enemies where simply taken out by my allies .


And as the northern tribes with their missilie axemen got wasted on altdorf I never experienced that trouble, but just aswell could have if they went east.

[nameless]

Well I never really designed an army fight chaos, my allies simply smashed them so quickly, however I would probably have gone with 6 halberdiers, 4 reiks, 3-4 - volley guns, 2 cannons, 4 greatswords, and steamtank and battlewizard.

Aren't you lucky my allies or friendly factions have been destroyed by Chaos.

The Vampire factions are strong in the East but Bretonnians have wiped out the Greenskins near me so yeah...

I mostly stuck to halberdiers and handgunners, cheap and suited my purposes, holding and delivering ap damage against the other empire factions. My army fighting greenskins where also such an army as it went there on a whim.
And before halberdiers, loads of swordsmen, cheap, effective.

So Halberdiers hold the line, AI is forced to charge because of your artillery, then you move your gunners up to flank the enemy?

Greatswords on the flanks too? and Reiks to do the charging? I may take your composition but use outriders to keep the chaos marauders in check.

However to add, franz was decked out in the dueling/personal damage tree, so he wrecked quickly enemy generals to then rout and win the day.


But ye, halb holding line, handgunners flanking, karl franz dueling generals in epic battles. With a firewizard raining aoe, with at least 3 mortars or 3-5 artypieces shooting.
But I do want to add that I focused so much on diplo, that loads of enemies where simply taken out by my allies .


And as the northern tribes with their missilie axemen got wasted on altdorf I never experienced that trouble, but just aswell could have if they went east.[/QUOTE]