A few Things I don't like in TW:Warhammer

[geala]

I don't want to discuss deeper design choices of Warhammer or wether animations are not perfect, there are some other threads about it, and it is often a matter of taste. My points are rather simple. I played three campaigns, all as Empire, because that's the only faction I'm currently interested in. Overall TW:WH for me is a rather good TW game, on par with my favourite TW:Attila, but with a different character. What is the most interesting is that TH:WH is a fun and challenge (more or less) to play even in late game. It's actually the first TW game I won (to my surprise a window popped up, telling me), usually I stopped playing before victory (reason: boredom) in other serials and I started with MTW.

What I don't like in increasing order:
1. Economy: too simple, and a little too restrictive for me, but the latter problem is easily solved by modding
2. Tech tree: not really interesting choices, too simple; that's partly corrected by the commander/hero development
3. Constant demands of allies to join a war against a far far away unimportant faction, instead they should concentrate on the faction nearby that actually kills them
4. Reluctance of the AI to colonize ruined neighbour regions, even if they belonged to the faction before; I really miss region trading, it could help weak allies
5. Agents; they were the reason I wanted to stop the campaign at one point or another. I don't like unkillable constant killers of my generals, stacks and settlements. But perhaps I'm just too weak minded.
6. Above all: entrance to the battlefield. It's just stupid and hard for me to understand. Made me quit some battles and auto-solve. I have four stacks closely together against 4 enemy stacks closely together, but my second 20 units enter at the distant border of the battlefield behind the enemy, and the enemy behind me. Constantly. Do they use Star Trek beaming, magic ports or huge helicopters?
Not so bad but also bad: if you have more than two stacks, only the first row units of all the stacks enter the battlefield. For me as Empire that means that I get only halbardiers, bihanders and ranged of all my stacks, but not the cavalry, tanks and artillery because they are in the second and third row. That is ... a bit weird.
I'm not sure wether No. 6 is moddable and that makes me a bit sad.

[Noobio]

models are just too small in battle and undistinguishable.. Huge let down

"black ant effect" as someone said

[vae victus]

1. Units are tiny. I want to see the awesomeness but I can't stay zoomed in when trying to micromanage.
2. No "story" aspect, I'm just clicking upgrades for a character who I don't care about.
3. Having the same territory to expand into every game. Guess I'll fight the greenskins again. At the same place. etc.
4. Few armies. I get that it makes it more "strategic", but I was sold on EPIC battles, not rushing a few stacks around.
5. Unit selection seems a bit limited? Maybe I'm just used to Radious' stuff on Attila
6. A lot seems to be further oversimplified, economics, etc.
Also I miss the geographical choke points.

I do like the game, I probably need more time to adjust. And download mods.

[daelin4]

I don't want to discuss deeper design choices of Warhammer or wether animations are not perfect, there are some other threads about it, and it is often a matter of taste. My points are rather simple. I played three campaigns, all as Empire, because that's the only faction I'm currently interested in. Overall TW:WH for me is a rather good TW game, on par with my favourite TW:Attila, but with a different character. What is the most interesting is that TH:WH is a fun and challenge (more or less) to play even in late game. It's actually the first TW game I won (to my surprise a window popped up, telling me), usually I stopped playing before victory (reason: boredom) in other serials and I started with MTW.

What I don't like in increasing order:
1. Economy: too simple, and a little too restrictive for me, but the latter problem is easily solved by modding
2. Tech tree: not really interesting choices, too simple; that's partly corrected by the commander/hero development
3. Constant demands of allies to join a war against a far far away unimportant faction, instead they should concentrate on the faction nearby that actually kills them
4. Reluctance of the AI to colonize ruined neighbour regions, even if they belonged to the faction before; I really miss region trading, it could help weak allies
5. Agents; they were the reason I wanted to stop the campaign at one point or another. I don't like unkillable constant killers of my generals, stacks and settlements. But perhaps I'm just too weak minded.
6. Above all: entrance to the battlefield. It's just stupid and hard for me to understand. Made me quit some battles and auto-solve. I have four stacks closely together against 4 enemy stacks closely together, but my second 20 units enter at the distant border of the battlefield behind the enemy, and the enemy behind me. Constantly. Do they use Star Trek beaming, magic ports or huge helicopters?
Not so bad but also bad: if you have more than two stacks, only the first row units of all the stacks enter the battlefield. For me as Empire that means that I get only halbardiers, bihanders and ranged of all my stacks, but not the cavalry, tanks and artillery because they are in the second and third row. That is ... a bit weird.
I'm not sure wether No. 6 is moddable and that makes me a bit sad.

1) Never was much to economy Shogun2 and onwards (or actually Total War in general). Economy in Shogun2 was interesting only because embedding the Metsuke agents into cities boosted tax income as well as public order. I'm disappointed there's no way to do that after that game, not even in Rome2/ Attila, and now Warhammer. They did make Heroes in Warhammer basically secondary castor generals, but surely it didn't require giving up ability to embed into cities to boost trade/ public order/ security AND become general of the garrison army?
Way I see it, economy in this game is more or less the same as it always was. That's not necessarily a good thing though. It actually feels even more watered down because CA has to make it Chaos favour as well as Dwarfen gold, Orc loot, and VC magic. A little too many things in this game is just standardized so that all races uses as many common game assets as possible.
2) Indeed, I immediately downloaded an expanded skill set mod, which among other things granted improved movement range in campaign mode for armies according to skills. But I think what can't be fixed is the horrendous UI for skilltree: I mean really CA? you can't even just save space between the tech icons and box them together instead of a straight line? It doesn't even look rushed, it looks like someone told them it could be done better, but the guy making it didn't give a .
3) AI has always been the worst part of Total War. In this sense, WTW is no different.
4) And it sounds simple to fix too: just make War Targets on ruined settlements be interpreted as "colonize this". Problem solved.
5) Assassinating is useful for removing powerful generals from the equation, but you have to admit them being on the giving end of the scheme too. That said, the handicaps the AI have nullify this argument.
6) Definitely haven't committed enough time on this part, and that's odd seeing as they clearly spent the greater portion of game development time on battle mode than in campaign mode. At the very least, allow players to select what units will arrive first.

Honestly, it kinda feels like CA just took a really old portion of Empire, and built up this game from it instead of, say, Attila. Sure a lot of things in WTW seem fine and even good, but a LOT of things also seem a step backward, like they deleted whole portions of game code that it would have really benefited from, like say, the part that tells reinforcing armies to arrive from contextual directions rather than random. And you know what? I got a feeling I made the exact same complain to previous titles.

[A Barbarian]

1) Never was much to economy Shogun2 and onwards (or actually Total War in general). Economy in Shogun2 was interesting only because embedding the Metsuke agents into cities boosted tax income as well as public order. I'm disappointed there's no way to do that after that game, not even in Rome2/ Attila, and now Warhammer. They did make Heroes in Warhammer basically secondary castor generals, but surely it didn't require giving up ability to embed into cities to boost trade/ public order/ security AND become general of the garrison army?

Actually, u can do that. Only that these perks come with followers. Simply assign the followers which boost economical output or raise happiness to the lord of your liking, station the loard in the city/province of your liking and u are good.

[Greasy Dave]

Actually, u can do that. Only that these perks come with followers. Simply assign the followers which boost economical output or raise happiness to the lord of your liking, station the loard in the city/province of your liking and u are good.

True, but keep in mind that that Lord will increase the cost of your military by as much as 1000 gold per turn or more (depending on how many Lords you have and difficulty level) - so the economic benefit of actually doing that is minimal or even negative. What you describe could be done with a hero....once he's levelled up...I think, but TBH I've not actually looked closely at economic hero abilities so I don't know what they can do, if anything.

[OfficerJohn]

True, but keep in mind that that Lord will increase the cost of your military by as much as 1000 gold per turn or more (depending on how many Lords you have and difficulty level) - so the economic benefit of actually doing that is minimal or even negative. What you describe could be done with a hero....once he's levelled up...I think, but TBH I've not actually looked closely at economic hero abilities so I don't know what they can do, if anything.

Wizards/engineers deployed in your home regions can reduce construction costs by up to 30%, which is a massive saving.

[M2TWRocks]

Agents are working as intended. They have fleshed out options on how to develop them. Some agents have - enemy agent success chance modifiers. As do some buildings. You essentially have two options in dealing with agents, being offensive or defensive.

If you choose offensive, you have to level up the assassin skills. This seems to be most people's gripe with agents -even highly leveled, player controlled agents don't have high success rates against enemy agents. But, it also seems to be affected by the type of agent as well. My moderately leveled banshee usually had around 50-60% chance of success to kill enemy generals and agents. But many other types were similarly leveled, but had a much less chance of success.

If you choose defensive, just build the appropriate buildings that have -% enemy agent success and level up your agents in a similar way. I've gone this route and the enemy's agents fail a few times, then leave or die from a critical failure. I believe there is hero equipment does affects this as well. It's certainly manageable if you spend a few minutes reading over the different affects of the skills you chose.

[ostendadler]

I remember we could decide what order soldiers could march on the previous title. I'm sure this can either be patched or modded.

Agents have always been a pain on the AI side for as long as I can recall (remember merchant predators in Medieval 2). You either have to dedicate your energy in turning your agent into a predator or just let it go. I feel that they will need to be toned down or transformed like DEI did with governors.

I can't say I've ever seen a tech tree that blew my mind in any total war game. They are buffs not specialties like in World of Warcraft. Perhaps you could share what you have in mind because I cannot picture it.

Constant demand from allies? And that's bad because? Just answer no and move on. Unless you are all over the map you never know what the AI faction is facing. (Border princes got a good beating from one of those minor orc hill tribes and got wiped out before the GS showed up ... )

Reluctant to colonize ? Agreed its annoying and should be changed however I must admit that the AI might not have the financial resources or manpower to spare for that. I found that giving them a financial boost once in a while raised the % of destroyed settlement being colonized. Its not perfect but it works. You are the most powerful leader in your respective race so with big pen... power comes big responsibility (i got side tracked here for a second).

Economy to simplified? I agree on that aspect. Wish we could raise taxation levels/province wise. Trade is a bit underwhelming. Nothing that cannot be changed.

Overall I still think the game is a very good one and a pleasant surprise after so many past blunders.

[Alsark]

I'm really enjoying the game, but I do find it annoying that all of my allies constantly ask me to go to war all of the time. I'd say every other or every third turn, three factions approach me asking me to go to war with some faction for them. I'm surprised that there doesn't seem to be a mod to disable this or at least reduce its likelihood.

[KAM 2150]

Well, then just don't take alliances you don't want to be part off, at worst just offer defensive alliances. Thing is, those alliances actually work, but people have wrong idea why they offer alliances to AI. It is logical that if you have many military allies, then you are asked to help them in wars. For the first time I learned the true values of alliances in TW when I played a campaign on beta version of next DeI release with population system added. I learned to pick my allies more wisely as I simply did not had manpower to wage war after war. Seriously, try this, just go with no agression pacts and maybe defensive alliances, all your problems will be solved.

[Dorkus_Malorkus]

I really like this game. First total war I will play multiple factions.

My gripes:

1. Chaos campaign: it exposes how stupid AI are in the campaign (leaving settlements undefended). I destroyed the North wastes, and they had no problem recolonizing it (and I left the awakened tribes with sacked settlements). I don't understand the point of 'awakening tribes'. Having to send Archaen back to the Chaos wastes for quests.
2. The speed at which the AI confederates. I think this affects the AI Orc campaign the most.
3. Agents. I don't mind it as much, as it adds some challenge, but it looks really dumb having all these captains following around an army, killing troops, and the army cannot do anything about it. Did the old Total War not have an 'agent detected' system, whereby assassins could be spotted and therefore became less effective.

Not had an issue with colonization. Keep in mind the AI is nearly always at war.

[Magni]

I really like this game. First total war I will play multiple factions.

My gripes:

1. Chaos campaign: it exposes how stupid AI are in the campaign (leaving settlements undefended). I destroyed the North wastes, and they had no problem recolonizing it (and I left the awakened tribes with sacked settlements). I don't understand the point of 'awakening tribes'. Having to send Archaen back to the Chaos wastes for quests.

Erm, dude? You don't have to march your lord and his whole army over to a quest battle location. Once you're at the stage where the battle itself is lit up, just put your lord nad his army out in the open in normal stance and click on the battle location. There's a button down in the corner right of the window that opens that allows you to teleport your lord+army to the quest battle loation and then teleport them back after winning it. Costs 5k gold, but it beats marching halfway across the map to collect that quest chain.

[emcdunna]

CA didn't remove code that made reinforcement armies show up from a logical direction.

Instead, they actually just randomized it. Every time you play a battle, reinforcements show up from a random direction. Even friendly and enemy reinforcements can show up from nearly the same direction!

It's stupid. I think CA did it so that these large battles would seem more random, increasing replayability, but instead they're just impossible. I almost always uncheck "play large battle" as it stops either side from getting reinforcements (during the part of the battle that matters).

[geala]

I don't find it annoying that my allies ask me to join a war (although it makes turns longer), I'm annoyed that they ask me to join a war with a far far away unimportant faction (f.e. once mighty Skaelings, now with 2 settlements and not seen for 20 turns) while the faction asking me is heavily beaten by a huge faction nearby. I hope the constant asking is no sign that the allied AI is focused totally wrong. The task of clicking "no" is bearable of course.

Giving money to the AI to be able to colonize is difficult, at least for me because I never have enough money. But colonizing is rather cheap actually, about 1000 gold, in TW:Attila is is ten times more. I play on vh and the AI should have money enough. The AI should priorize colonizing settlements nearby that once belonged to the faction. I razed a lot of Greenskin occupied Dwarf settlements f.e. but the once mighty Dwarfs do nothing to colonize. Many don't like region trading because of abuse by players who like to cheat themselves but a possibility to give wasted regions to the AI would be nice.

With mods I can live with the agents. My only real big and hefty gripe with TW:Warhammer so is the battlefield starting positions of the reinforcement armies. The randomness is so stupid.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

What I do not like :

Streamlined battles Units do not have anymore the powers they used to have
Streamlined gameplay , it all resolves with big clashes of troops and tactics are no longer important
Streamlined sieges they are all the same and very limited options or variety
Removal of unit features
Almoust flat battlefields
Lack of tactical gameplay
Graphics not coherent , Many units look gorgeous, others look bland and the terrains look not at the level of the other older TW games especially the ground .