Chaos Campaign exposes the horrible flaws of TWW.

[X3Keep]

I'm done with Chaos Campaign (on hard), i quite - 140 turns in... It's just an exercise in frustration. I've never had so much frustration with a TW game ever (played all since Rome 1)
I played Greenskins first on normal - no issues. Was way too easy in fact - basically just mopup operation. Now with chaos all the flaws of the game that seemed a little bit of a nuisance in the Ork campaign are now just downright gamebreakers.

1) Agent spam: Every turn with chaos i have at least 2 empire or other agents trying their "best". Chaos has no efficient assassins on it's own, and the enemies are too numerous (means many more agents) to deal with it with the limited Heros you have due to cost. With greenskins i had no such problems due to quick leveling from the assassins. They where actually way too powerfull.

2) OP Agent actions: Destroying 25% of an army with a single agent action is just ridiculously overpowered AF. Doesnt matter if elite army or not. Bye Elites. Good luck replenishing that with your ridiculously low replenishment rate (even upgraded)

3) Cat and Mouse army game is game breaking with chaos. They have no agents to impede movement -> no chance to ever catch an ememy that runs, unless the terrain situation is very very much in your favor.
Case 1: I tried chasing an empire stack with 1 big stack and one weaker as bait. Took ~20 turns, then the enemy army was completely (except the lord) destroyed due to mountain and chaos attrition. GREAT GAMEPLAY
Case 2: "Surprise buttlove" event happened - had to run away due to small army. Eventually managed to cobble 3 stacks of warrior units together to defeat the 2 stacks with 40% knights and 30% troll/giant. Except i couldn't defeat them entirely. They ran away again. No way to catch em. So i have 2 choices: run around for 50+ turns trying to chase them down (and run out of favor due huge deficit). Or ignore them, which lets them rebuild again. All the while 5+ other enemy armies stalk me, leaving disbanding most of the army out of question.


4) Attrition due to Horde proximity. Seriously, who thought that was a good idea? How are you supposed to defeat 3 stacks with just one stack? And also, if you use more, good luck trying to catch with multiple stacks before running out of units from attrition.

5) The big "surprise event" battle i had to use autoresolve, because as it turns out, the placement of your units on campaignmap matters jack shice on the battlemap. (campaign map - before trolltooth attacks right enemy stack, battlemap). So the 2 enemies could steamroll my first one (large amount of cav, chariots, fast monsters), with my reinforcements (95% infantry) having to run across the entire map to participate.

Has anyone actually playtested this? It's not hard due to beeing strategically difficult. It's hard to not quit out of frustration from the stupid game mechanics/balance. I'm in turn 140. I had 5 field battles (two whe from the "surprise event", one was defeating the single lord that ran out of units from attrition when i finally trapped him). All the rest was running, chasing, or attacking settlements.

Worst gameplay in any TW game i have ever experienced. And that even AFTER i installed mods that disable the proximity attrition losses (still prevents replenishment) and with reduced chance for "assault army" action beeing successfull.

Also... WTF is this supposed to be? "cinematic battlefields" - half of it is entirely black. Good job.

[KAM 2150]

Chaos campaign, with proper mods, is probably one of the best TW gameplays I've ever had. Long live the Kholek!

[Yerevan]

Chaos campaign, with proper mods, is probably one of the best TW gameplays I've ever had. Long live the Kholek!

Which mods ?

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

Chaos Sorcerer can get skilled up to use misdirect army

[KAM 2150]

Better Camera Mod, Proper Combat Mod, Cataph Chaos Steeds, Conquer Anywhere mod, More Skill Points, No Agressive Agents, Olympian Campaign Camera, The Empire of Sigmar, Vampire Counts Blood Knights,.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

One thing I noticed on my VC campaign that I don't know if is intentional or they forgot is that Skaeling and Varg armies are immune to vampiric attrition, Chaos armies suffer normally from it when they aren't in raiding stance, but Skaeling and Varg are not affected, also their settlements don't have public order at all, again I don't know if it's intentional or not.

[drillmaster]

Most of your problems can be fixed as KAM said with mods. Ive never played a vanilla campaign. Ive been using mods from day one. They re out there
Why not use them?

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[Frost, colonel]

Most of your problems can be fixed as KAM said with mods. Ive never played a vanilla campaign. Ive been using mods from day one. They re out there
Why not use them?

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

I with you and KAM 2150, mod out the stuff that's ruining the fun for you.
I don't understand why the mods get missed, aren't they mentioned on the game launch software that first comes up when you open the game to start? You have to have the patience to go through the mods, see what you want, don't pick one' that conflict with others, some times certain one's need to be ticked first, I am next to useless with software and even I can do so don't get to daunted by them, even though as I type this their are only 657 to go through!!!!!!!!!!!!! Doesn't take as long as you think.

[Dorkus_Malorkus]

I agree with this. Played Vamps and Orcs - no issues. I just found Chaos a bit lacking in depth. It is a challenge but it still feels very 'gamey', and not polished. I think the attrition to Horde proximity is not as big an issue, as long as you attack and don't defend, since attrition does not matter so much if you win the battle.

Beating Kislev was fun, but 'uniting' the North is a bit of a waste of time, other than levelling up and getting an extra stack or two. I also find you have to waste a lot of your hero skill points on the 'Horde Tribes' skill (to give you Growth).

So, I feel your pain, I thought Chaos campaign was a bit of a let down.

[Fallen851]

No aggressive agents is a critical mod for TWW. Agents are poorly done.

[Gronndar]

Yeah, install some mods. Fix that game yourself.

[geala]

The most valid arguments in the TS post are the complaints about the agents (there are mods which help a bit) and above all the battlefield starting positions of the reinforcement armies. The latter feature is so stupid that I wonder .... Random events are necessary in a game like this, but not in this case. Meanwhile I autoresolve every battle with more than one stack involved.

The run-away-and-catch mechanic on the other hand is more or less ok in my opinion. You need to position your armies in a way before battle that you can catch dispersing armies after the won battle. It's dangerous of course, sometimes the enemy attacked my strategically positioned armies f.e. by abandoning a siege and massing his armies on one of mine. Good AI behaviour.

[Fallen851]

The run-away-and-catch mechanic on the other hand is more or less ok in my opinion. You need to position your armies in a way before battle that you can catch dispersing armies after the won battle. It's dangerous of course, sometimes the enemy attacked my strategically positioned armies f.e. by abandoning a siege and massing his armies on one of mine. Good AI behaviour.

It might be good AI behavior, but it is a terrible gameplay mechanic and is one of the worst points of the release for me. I've modded armies to have a 50% movespeed bonus in friendly territories, so it doesn't bother me. And honestly, such a movespeed bonus should exist anyway, because armies throughout all of history move much faster on friendly terrain for a variety of reasons.

[illathid]

The most valid arguments in the TS post are the complaints about the agents (there are mods which help a bit) and above all the battlefield starting positions of the reinforcement armies. The latter feature is so stupid that I wonder ....

The wrong positioned army reinforcement is a confirmed bug and will be fixed in either patch 1 or 2 (depending on how long it takes to fix).

[Aneximanes]

Regarding:
4) Attrition due to Horde proximity. Seriously, who thought that was a good idea? How are you supposed to defeat 3 stacks with just one stack? And also, if you use more, good luck trying to catch with multiple stacks before running out of units from attrition.

Lightning strike is a must-have skill for your LL!

[gary0044187]

Regarding:
4) Attrition due to Horde proximity. Seriously, who thought that was a good idea? How are you supposed to defeat 3 stacks with just one stack? And also, if you use more, good luck trying to catch with multiple stacks before running out of units from attrition.

Lightning strike is a must-have skill for your LL!

dude, no doubt, I make sure to grab that on every lord, even if they are my combat specced dudes.

[Arimahn]

My Chaos campaign lasted 350(!) turns because the Empire kept recolonizing ruined provinces and I only had a single stack, albeit of elite Chosen, to chase after them for 90% of the game. Even with all the buffs to sacking income and having 500k Favor, a second stack will ruin your finances right quick.

[KAM 2150]

I have 3 stacks running around and my finances are more then good, armies full of chosen and dragon ogres.

[Arimahn]

I have 3 stacks running around and my finances are more then good, armies full of chosen and dragon ogres.

Three stacks of Chosen would be roughly 20k Favor just in upkeep per turn. Where do you find enough settlements to pillage to get that much Favor?

[KAM 2150]

Three stacks of Chosen would be roughly 20k Favor just in upkeep per turn. Where do you find enough settlements to pillage to get that much Favor?

To be more specific, my stacks are mostly made of 1 hero, 4-6 warhounds, 2-4 dragon ogres, 2 chaos knights and around 8-10 chosen. There is a bit of unit upkeep buildings, traits etc that help you reduce it, but with other perks to looting and other, there are battles (yes, battles, not sieges) that I in late game get around 20k to 40k per victory and cities mostly give me around 20k to 45k. Raiding ant tributes from other factions also help. There were few tough situations, when I was thinking I would run out of money, but mostly I am around 80k - 120k.