Because it took me too many years to learn, you can rotate breath spells before casting by holding the button
I’d also suggest you get the Better Camera Mod and Save Camera Settings. Might as well grab Skip Intro while you are there, save yourself some clicks.
There aren’t any gameplay changes in those, just save you some clicks. If you haven’t messed with it before, you can change your in game camera settings during end-turn processing to toggle what is shown and how fast it will animate. For example I have enemy armies set to move Fast, enemy heroes set to move Fastest, and literally all other armies turned off so I don’t have to watch non-hostiles move during the end-turn. But you can toggle everything to your liking. You can even toggle it by specific faction if you want.
Gentleman – I saw that clip and to be super honest i was not sure what it meant. I am lying in wait. wait --I think i am laying in wait. Ugghh! Btw Troy got an addon (expansion) today FYI.
Also MM is right --better camera mod etc --what he said… workshop on steam easy peasy.
More Empire lords I hope!
Even though I own both 1 and 2 (and really haven’t played either much, since my system’s a tad old), I don’t think I’ve ever asked what elements of each are randomized (if any) with each play. Is anyone willing to comment on this?
Willing; yes. Accurate? Probably there are more knowledgeable folks out there, but I’ll give my observations.
The game pieces are always set up the same - army composition, location, and of course cities and the like, just the same as setting up a board game for play. But the instant you start playing, variables change. Sure, you’ll always start at war with some nearby faction to get you going, but as the game progresses nothing is set in stone. Who takes out whom, what alliances are forged, what factions are you able persuade into trade with you, or war with an enemy, that sort of ebb and flow of gameplay will change as the game progresses. Some games the Vampire Lords will be a huge threat, swallowing up all the nearby lands, while other games they will be a kitten faction that does nothing. Some variables are very common and likely to happen, others not so much. Same for events - when and what they are is random, though in my experience the game is long enough you’ll see all of a given factions events/quests in one long play through of a campaign, or most of them. Same with things such as loot from battles, and probably other things I’m not thinking of.
Great, thanks for the detailed reply!
To be fair, that wasn’t an option in the first game.
Running a Vampire out to the flank to toss a Winds of Death was just something you had to do if you wanted it to work.
Scott covered it, but the way the world turns out tends to be fairly random these days. Some patches throw the balance off in one direction or another hence things like Ordertide, Dawitide and Greentide as one faction reliably has an inherent advantage on the AI side of things. Of late things have been pretty well balanced though.
Vampire Counts are in a rough spot with the introduction of Drycha, who hates them, so that means they tend to do poorly, which means the Empire tends to explode and become powerful, but nothing is set in stone. You might wander over to the Empire and see a sea of Vampires awaiting you. Or the Vampires might all be dead and the Empire holds dominion over everything. Or maybe Thrott has gone wild and is pushing to Altdorf.
There are cycles and patterns, but CA is good about addressing and trying to fix them so every game plays out fairly differently. And of course you might start in a completely different part of the world so it might be irrelevant how the Empire or Vampires are doing if you’re in Lustria fighting Lizards all day.
Oh, that makes me feel better. There’s so many things that you only learn when you watch game streams.
There’s only two variables I can think of at the start of the game. The first is the trait that the starting Hero unit gets for each Legendary Lord. The second is potentially how much factions might dislike the player (their adversity). Otherwise yep, the world is chaotic enough to be highly variable.
Man, I had forgotten how much I suck at Total War games. I really enjoy them, but it takes me quite a while to be even halfway competent. Even on Easy I am finding my armies out matched and walloped in the first few turns. I’m playing as the Empire, Karl Franz, to get a feel for things again. The guides I’ve seen say things like “move here, kill these guys first, then kill those guys.” Yeah, well, the problem is I have like a third as many troops to start and can’t recruit many (and of few types) in the time frame the guides assume, so obviously I’m really, really bad at the tactical battles!
Pause early, pause often. Remap pause to something you can hit quickly and easily (I use Z).
Maybe the guides are out of date or poorly written? Empire has had some changes of recent times.
Some general/generic thoughts:
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Melee Heroes and Lords are more than competent in battle. Your squishy ranged and magic focused lords should stay clear of the front line, but someone like Karl is more than adept at killing the chaff in the beginning of the game. In other words, if it is a lord with Melee expert, get them in the battle lines dishing out damage. It is less damage effectively hitting your own troops. It took me a long time to learn to put lords in fights.
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As a rule, in game options (game settings) I’ll enable “default guard mode.” With all units staying on guard mode, it means they don’t go rushing off on the map chasing down foes that they may potentially can not keep up with. There are times during battle I will disable guard mode on specific units when I want them to chase, but on the whole, keep it on.
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I also make sure “default skirmish mode” is off. Skirmish mode is only useful for horse archers/skirmishers/units that can fire while moving. Having a line of archers on skirmish mode is ill-advised, they should be protected by front line troops for a start and I don’t want them running back and not firing.
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Camera options in the battle map. If you hold down space, you’ll see a box appear on the right. It may need to be expanded with the little arrow that appears. Midway down the screen, right hand side. The spacebar key can give you a lot of useful information, so much so I have everything enabled/toggled when I press space. The padlock next to each option means it is always enabled. I only have the padlock enabled for stat bars and threat level. So during the battle, I can see at a glace without pressing anything how my units are faring and the threat that a particular unit might face against the various enemy units. It is personal preference, and, for instance when fighting in jungle maps, I may end up keeping disable foliage locked.
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The game is rock paper scissors in a sense. Using threat level (see above) can give an idea of how poorly a unit will fare against another unit. Eg: spears will do poorly against sword units, but are good against large units like monsters. Archers will waste their ammo against anything with a shield, so try to avoid those targets. I also tend to space out my units more, they need room to move. And gunpowder units fire straight, not in an arc like archers, so can not be obstructed either by front line or terrain. Working out and implementing effectively unit strengths should see you succeed in most battles.
This is recent, Jan 2021. He’s the only totalwar streamer I’ve watched. It’s good.
In general I had an epiphany when I realized melee units exist as doorstops. Heroes are the best tanks.
He’s playing Legendary which makes melee mostly useless.
On Normal or Hard melee does just fine. On VH/Legend, the AI’s bonuses and your maluses are so huge that skavenslaves will beat greatswords. Missiles are basically unaffected by difficulty, so it usually comes down to them to win everything (or to find a melee unit you can buff via a lord to such insane levels that they’ll still win).
Thanks for the info. I’ve been doing some of those things–getting young Franz into the fray (say that five times fast!), matching up troop types, etc. but I probably just need to slow things down and not have everyone just bunch up in a big ball, heh.
I think a common mistake newer players make is to let their forces blob up with huge numbers of their models not actually attacking. Always try to go around the flank or better yet behind. The penalties for getting attacked from a direction the model isn’t facing are massive.
Cycle charge your cavalry, especially your shock cav. A shock cav will do as much damage within 10 seconds of impact as it will in the 40+ seconds after. Run routing enemies off the field with fast units. Don’t be afraid to melee charge with missile cav on fleeing units, they don’t attack back.
A nice feature I didn’t mention (forgot) was with control groups. Say you create a front line of Empire spearmen. Group them using the Ctrl Key (may need to press twice, depending on options) and ensure the little padlock for the group is lit up. When you give them marching orders, they’ll maintain the line formation when clicking on the map, and importantly when clicking on the opposing units. It should look clear with the movement arrows as they will remain parallel to each other. It is one of those useful features to ensure a front line clashes evenly with the other front line. I hope that makes sense?
And definitely agree with MisterMourning - don’t blob. For one, it just invites vortex spells that will devastate your troops. And secondly, it makes it harder to pull units out of the fight to get them moving elsewhere. That’s why I try to have spacing amongst my units. It is infuriating when there are stragglers still engaged and the troop needs to be somewhere else.