Warherd of Chaos

[Darviathar]

Has this ever been a threat to anyone in a game? I wish they'd strengthen it to put it more on par with the Chaos Invasions (because I almost never get to fight Beastmen as a Vampire Count). I also wish that it would start in the south, to break up the boring dwarves (who always seem to annihilate the orcs fairly quickly).

[daelin4]

I must agree. Having played a campaign with it's fair share of "OMFG Brayherds man!" event popups, I find that they're really just basically "neutral rebellions", raising armies in your lands but start neutral and rarely ever posing a threat. In my campaigns at least, every Beastmen stack was basically free XP for any army nearby.

[Darviathar]

The 17$ I paid for beastmen is among the worst money I've ever spent. They should be downright ashamed about how little this faction impacts the campaign map.

[drillmaster]

True. Steam sales is the way to go with this one. I was going to buy it but after seeing what it did to the campaign im glad i didnt.

[Darviathar]

The Beastlords start with two wretched stacks, and have trouble with Estalia. One of their stacks (the one with the generic lord) simply cannot beat ANYTHING, and in reality is useless. The other does have minotaurs, but the AI doesn't understand the concept of hiding out in forests to recuperate between fights. Beastlords are eliminated quickly in most of my games. Occasionally I'll fight one of their minor hordes, but the stack is largely a joke to a standing army. The map simply doesn't give them a chance, and I cannot imagine a situation in which they are a real threat to anyone's grand campaign.

[drillmaster]

I usually slaughter them in the first 10 turns as the Empire when they try to cross through Helmgart for some reason.

[Ichon]

The regular Brayherds and Beastmen are very underwhelming in campaigns but the Warherds of Chaos have been quite tough for me a few times since they can sit invisible and have high chances to ambush. Of the handful of battles I lost in my recent Empire campaign the Chaos Warherds were responsible for the two biggest defeats late in the game.

Overall I am not liking how small the map feels at times and both Beastmen and the Norscans feel as if they were implemented in underwhelming ways. I would much rather every Norscan settlement 'sponsor' a raiding party that spawns in the ocean in random locations around the map with 50% in the north down to 10% off southern Badlands. If you raze the sponsor city the raiding parties don't spawn until/unless that city is resettled.

The Norscan faction leader (two factions usually both survive most of campaign) should be a warlord with a single stack that has access to some of the Chaos roster and can spawn a secondary stack similar to Waaagh but stronger. The raiding parties sponsored by the settlements should start at 5 units and mostly raid/harass but if left alone will slowly grow in strength at about 1/3 the speed of rebels. Rebels can reach 20 unit army in 3-4 turns so the Norscan raiders if left alone should be able to reach 20 units in 9-12 turns but not have access to the Chaos roster until Archaon arrives. So basically there would be only 1-4 large threatening Norscan armies led by warlords that once defeated actually take a bit to become threatening again but can grow nearly as strong if not stronger than Chaos armies (due to Lords and Heroes gaining XP the entire campaign). The smaller Norscan raiding parties are more harassment but mean there aren't any 100% safe borders and if as Dwarfs you leave no armies in the badlands the Norscan raiders can become a real threat. That would be WAY better than the initial constant 4-10 Norscan armies roaming northern Empire or the now rather quiet unthreatening Norscans that only show up with the start of Chaos invasion plus spread out Norscan threat and hopefully along with Dark Elves much later release make the coasts of the Old World feel somewhat under threat than the nearly complete (1 spawn scripted in the south only) peace that reigns now.

Beastmen should be small raiding parties spawning similar to Norscans but near forested areas and in the Badlands with main faction behaving as it does now but able to do some limited diplomacy with the smaller raiding parties (selecting wartargets) if fulfill certain missions/defeat certain factions. Then once Skaven are added the Badlands would be a place teeming with factions; 1-2 Skaven, Savage Orc Hordes, the various GS and Dwarfs, and the random spawning parties of Beastmen. Would probably lead to slightly more Waaaghs for GS but also more chaotic campaigns in the Badlands rather than the survival mode then steamroll of the current map.

[drillmaster]

All we can do is hope for a team to make an overhaul for this game. It has too many flaws right now. I hope it has the popularity needed for a modding team to take up the task. I would be willing to help in this. But I cant see this happening.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Normally, I am against heavy scripting in these sorts of big strategy game, but with Warhammer I think we could use a lot more. AI hordes simply aren't a threat, ever, to my armies. I think they should spawn in much greater numbers, full stacks at a time, preferably and, like rebels, they should get worse the longer you ignore them.


In basically every campaign I fight, whatever Norscan tribe manages to conquer the North is a far greater threat to me than the actual Chaos invasion ever is.

[KAM 2150]

I am planning to release a mod today that will make Beastmen hold on much longer and pose bigger threat.


As for Chaos and Norsca threat overhaul (So Chaos is the boss and Norsca is just minor force), check out my latest mod:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=763689565

[KAM 2150]

Ok, check out this file, it should help the beastmen AI.

It is not yet on steam and it does not have specific mod thread.

Changes:
-Added basic income to main building chain to Beastmen hordes as AI is not able to afford developement just from raiding
-Added basic replenishment to main building chain so they won't die off due to AI being unable to hide and wait
-Increased size of Ungors, Gors, Minotaurs, Giants and Chaos spawn.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/bi...tmen_Tide.pack

[Darviathar]

Would your Chaos mod work in a game that allows 40 unit armies, Kam?

[KAM 2150]

Yes, but Chaos AI does not work with 40 units per army. Simply Chaos lacks income to support 40 armies, so Chaos would run with 20-25 unit stacks, while other factions would have 40 units.

[ostendadler]

Every campaign seems to unroll differently. I haven't bought the DLC but as VC and Empire they tend to pop back up in the worst possible places ...

[Darviathar]

Every campaign seems to unroll differently. I haven't bought the DLC but as VC and Empire they tend to pop back up in the worst possible places ...

I've played the Vampire Counts extensively, having forced myself to finally finish the long campaign (having finally lucked into one where the Orcs beat the dwarves, and I would not have to spend 90 hours rooting out every mountain stronghold). I've never had the Beastlords threaten me at all. You won't ever see the main Beast faction so far to the east, and the minor tribes that show up seem to be scared of walls of any sort!

[PaulH]

Beastmen need a bigger roster of more dangerous regiments/monsters. In the potential unit list I wrote, I uncovered a lot of units that could be added to the Beastmen faction to improve them, I'm thinking the Chosen Beastmen and monstrous sections especially. It might work for someone to add those.

[Ichon]

Ok, check out this file, it should help the beastmen AI.

It is not yet on steam and it does not have specific mod thread.

Changes:
-Added basic income to main building chain to Beastmen hordes as AI is not able to afford developement just from raiding
-Added basic replenishment to main building chain so they won't die off due to AI being unable to hide and wait
-Increased size of Ungors, Gors, Minotaurs, Giants and Chaos spawn.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/bi...tmen_Tide.pack

Interesting- is there any way to get more warherds to spawn in more southern and central parts of the map? So as GS/VC have more chance to fight them earlier? As Dwarfs and VC most campaigns I get to fight at least 1 army, sometimes 2 but I don't think I've ever fought GS vs Beastmen other than custom battle.

[Millimidget]

Horde AI is borked. I've been testing a mod. Part of that mod dramatically reduces horde development costs; scaling 1 growth unit per building, with no growth cost for upgrades. I've got a screenshot on steam of a chaos stack demonstrating, in part, how the horde AI fails. The hordes are beelining high level monsters (chaos giants and beastmen cygors are the main culprits). I haven't yet established why, but my current suspicion is that the AI is beelining the buildings which unlock these units. I'm going to try toying around with their CAI building values, and see if that can't prod them into more respectable behavior.