Total War: WARHAMMER II – The Potion of Speed Update
Total War: WARHAMMER II
Al Bickham
December 9 2019
This automatic update arrives alongside The Shadow & the Blade Lords pack, bringing with it a huge array of content revisions, balances, bug fixes, and quality of life improvements to the Eye of the Vortex and Mortal Empires campaigns.
Even if you haven’t purchased The Shadow & The Blade, Deathmaster Snikch, Malus Darkblade, and their attendant factions of Hag Graef and Clan Eshin will add their distinctiveness to your campaigns, becoming potential allies… or just to generally mess up your day.
The watchword of this patch is maintenance. We’ve done a host of tweaks and balance changes to all sorts of areas, as well as sorting out our faction naming consistency, reworking Black Arks in a manner befitting their dread reputation, and some much-needed optimisation passes to the end-turn process in order to speed it up.
We’ve also give some of our Legendary Lords a makeover – check out their before and after pictures below:
End-Turn Time Reduction
The headline improvement in this update, we’ve found some useful code optimisations to the campaign gameplay systems and AI’s decision-making during end-turn rounds. These improvements reduce the time it takes for each faction to take its turn when you hit the end-turn button. This time reduction benefits players on all system specifications but will vary according to individual specs.
Faction Naming Changes
As many of you have noticed, there’s some divergence in naming conventions between certain factions from WARHAMMER I and WARHAMMER II – a hangover from the early days when Dwarfs, for example, were the only playable Dwarfen faction. We’ve now addressed these for consistency. Old World factions, and some New World factions, will no longer use the name of their race, but instead will have their own unique faction name:
- The Empire → Reikland
- Dwarfs → Karaz-a-Karak
- Greenskins → Black Crag
- Vampire Counts → Sylvania
- Vampire Coast → The Awakened
- Bretonnia → Couronne
- Wood Elves → Talsyn
- Norsca → World Walkers
Gotrek & Felix
- Gotrek and Felix are now exempted from Supply Lines. If they are replaced by a generic Lord, supply lines will adjust accordingly
- Added effect for Gotrek to distribute all his XP gains to the other generals
- Increased their duration to 30 turns
- New Icons and Unit Category Descriptions have been implemented for Gotrek and Felix
- Fixed an issue where Gotrek and Felix would return to the player’s faction after their previous AI owner had died, even when the player did not own the Free-LC
- Event messages stating that Gotrek and Felix have left their faction will no longer show when players do not own the Free-LC
Campaign Balance Changes
- The Cult of Sotek will now gain Sacrificial Offerings after battles, scaling with the enemy army’s strength. You may still gain 50 additional Sacrificial Offerings using the Mark for Sacrifice post-battle option
- Swapped Scavenging Runs and Strength in Numbers on the Skaven tech tree, making it optional to grab the Expendable trait for your Clan Rats
- Added new late game dilemma for Reikland to spend excess Prestige
- Elector Counts with non-aggression pacts with the player are now much less likely to secede from the Empire
- Added Slave income bonus to Dark Elf starting technology Choose or Die!. The tech is no longer automatically gifted at the start of a campaign
- Helman Ghorst’s research rate bonus has been decreased from 30% to 20%
- Azhag the Slaughterers’ research rate bonus has been decreased from 25% to 20%
- Increased Lizardmen research rate granted by the alignment of crafting from 1% per rank to 2% per rank
- The pirate cove building Smuggler’s Cove now grants 3% research instead of 2%
- The Skaven engineering chain now grants 4-8% research rate instead of 3-6%
- Tomb King settlements now grant their research rate incrementally as they rank up, instead of all at the first tier
- The Norscan Marauder Chieftain’s personal tree has been updated for parity with other lords. All skills now require 2 points to max instead of 3 and provide benefits on par (or exceeding!) the generic personal line
- Added effect bundle that increases region vision based on local public order
- Bretonnian Heroes now gain immortality when achieving a Grail Vow
- The Questing Vow now provides 10% weapon strength instead of 5 flat armour-piercing damage for Lords
- Skaven economy adjustments: Increased scaling and base income of all buildings, removed Tier 1 and Tier 2 Energy building and reduced effect to 30,40,50% from 80,90,100%
- Fixed an issue where the Sacred Kroxigors RoR unit was getting poor results during autoresolve
- Updated the following characters skill trees to include Greater Arcane Conduit Instead of Arcane Conduit:
- Teclis
- Slann Lords
- Mazdamundi
- Kroak
- Morathi
- Updated several WARHAMMER I Lord and Hero starting traits with slightly improved effects across the board
- Added new skill Manifold Sorcery to Teclis
- Teclis no longer loses access to bound Fireball when taking the Flames of the Phoenix skill
- Vampire Counts AI now absorbs the Rival Vampires at the start of a campaign
- Embedded heroes now gain twice as much XP from participating in battles
Recruitment and unit unlock changes
- Dark Elves: Dreadspears moved to settlement chain, Bleakswords to Tier 1 Barracks, Dark Riders (Repeater Crossbow) to Tier 1 Stables, Black Ark Corsairs to Tier 1 port
- Dwarfs: Miners to settlement chain
- Greenskins: Goblin Spearmen and Goblin Archers to settlement, removed Tier 1 Barracks for Skarsnik
- Lizardmen: Skink Cohort & Skink Cohort (Javelins) to settlement, removed Tier 1 Skink Barracks
- Norsca: Marauders to settlement
- Vampire Counts: Zombies & Skeleton Warrior to settlement, removed Tier 1 Cemetery
Clan Pestilens tweaks
Clan Pestilens has received a few nuggets of plaguey goodness to spice up their campaign…
- Clan Pestilens now unlocks the Rite of Pestilence when constructing a Pox Cauldron instead of a Pestilent Nave
- -15 turn cooldown on the Rite of Pestilence
- Clan Pestilens now enjoys uniquely large benefits for spreading plagues to their own forces and cities, granting growth and economic benefits for cities and powerful combat bonuses for forces
- Clan Pestilens now has access to a special Under Empire building that continuously spawns a plague in the settlement above
- New faction effect: Chance of a plague spreading +50%
Black Ark Rework
To complement The Shadow & The Blade, Black Arks have received a mechanical overhaul to diversify their gameplay.
- Black Arks are now full characters with access to items, skills and traits
- Black Arks are now able to blockade ports and attack coastal settlements
- Black Arks now have access to unique skills that further improve their army, making them the true terrors of the seas!
- IMPORTANT: Black Arks present in old saves will convert to the new type, but when that old save is loaded after the update, newly converted Arks will begin at level 1 and have no starting traits. Any Arks recruited after that point will correctly have their starting trait
Battle AI Changes
- Improved AI’s use of healing abilities, meaning it won’t activate healing abilities immediately when taking damage
Hidden Items
We’ve heard you loud and clear regarding the various hidden unique items and we’ve enacted the following changes:
- All previously hidden unique items are now visible in the skill tree of the relevant character
- Hidden unique items now always trigger at a specified level instead of randomly generating
- Hidden unique items now trigger in both the Eye of the Vortex and Mortal Empires campaigns
- The items now made available are:
- The Shadow Crown (Alith Anar)
- Amulet Of Dark Fire (Crone Hellebron)
- Shieldstone of Isha (Alarielle the Radiant)
- Red Blades (Lokhir)
- Morgiana’s Mirror (The Fay Enchantress)
- Armour of Brilliance (Louen Leoncour)
- Braid of Bordeleaux (Alberic De Bordelaux)
- Moon Staff of Lileath (Teclis)
- Scroll of Hoeth (Teclis)
- Wand of the Kharaidon (Morathi)
- Armour of Midnight (Malekith)
- Heart of Avelorn (Tyrion)
- Amber Amulet (Morathi)`
- The Mace of Ulumak (Gor-Rok)
Campaign-Exclusive Units
You can now use campaign-exclusive units in custom battles (not in ranked matches, though!). You can find these units in their own category near the bottom of the roster. These units are a mixture of special feature units (Elector Counts, Mortuary Cult, Skryre Workshop) and a few special one-off units, such as Gate Guard and Spider Hatchlings. It is not possible to save an army build containing campaign-exclusive units.