Chaplin
1864
What is the conventional wisdom for building priorities? I am tempted to keep the tier 1-3 ones for secondary outpost cities since they are limited and the buildings that go up to tier 5 for the province capitol. However, I find myself needing those 1-3 buildings for basic troops or economy. Do I just use them then sell and redo them later on?
Also, should I be using slots to get things like golden skulls, salt, and pottery? They seem barely useful for the jar recipes, but maybe for trade. I can’t imagine trade will be a long lasting part of the Tomb King empire. “Hi, I am here to steel your souls into jars and to raise my mummies from the ashes of long lost dynasties…would you like to buy this nice bowl?”
Razgon
1865
I bave around 150 hours in this game. Thousands of horus in the the other total war games, and I havent ever, never, won a game in Warhammer 2.
I have great fun, but I think I lack the understanding of numbers and the agression to actually go take other cities.
Its a bit strange, but kinda fun that, now that I just realized this - Also, I kinda tend to play the game as I think the faction would, i.e. roleplaying it.
Does anyone else play the game like this?
The key when playing Tomb Kings is to get money and jar income going. Everything else is secondary. When you only have a few provinces it will seem like you need those building slots to get you troops but in the long run you really don’t. Your territory will grow faster than your number of armies, because generals are your scarcest and most precious resource later on.
Focus on the the Ushabti buildings as a few Ushabti can go a long way. The melee ones are solid combatants that can hold the line against enemy heavy infantry while your skeletal archers rack up the kills. The Ushabti archers are also good melee combatants and have a powerful ranged attack that’s great against higher value enemy targets. Have them pick on monsters, cavalry, etc. Don’t get distracted by all the cavalry / chariot / flier options that TK have. They are neat but fragile. Ushabti are the key to building a solid army that can tide you over until you get the really cool upper tier TK stuff.
ShivaX
1867
My issue with TK is always money. My armies are… basically worthless, even 2 of them can’t win a lot of fights, especially since the 2nd army is probably 15 skeleton warriors, 4 archers and a lord. To get better units I need money to build the structures. I can’t win any fights to get money.
Then someone with a real army walks into my territory and just takes everything. I couldn’t bribe them to keep them friendly or stop them from doing it because… all my units are garbage and I have no money.
Then I get frustrated and lose/quit.
They don’t make money, but it’s not like that makes their structures any cheaper. Taking back something I lost means I’m down a ton of money as well since the cost of rebuilding is usually enormous.
I don’t know about being the Tomb Kings, but in my High Elf campaign I have long-standing deals with a couple TK factions, because those darn lizards refuse to talk to me. :)
I’ve been enjoying this game a ton. But one thing I preferred about WH1 over the WH2 campaign is the variable matchups. I’ve yet to have my HE armies face anything other than Vampire Coast, Norsca, or Dark Elves, and I’m a long way into the campaign. I guess the chaos incursions too. I can see they tried with the random wandering armies and factions, but it’s a shame given the sheer number of factions that I’m fighting mostly two or three.
This is something I’ve thought about as well. Generally I get why it is set up this way, and it works for me in the end, but it’s also led me to the idea that a game like is just missing one major campaign type - the randomly generated map, Gladius style, with multiple AI players selecting random lords, and maybe some smaller factions sprinkled on for good measure. Maybe they can do something like that with Warhammer 3?
Has any TW game had a random map scenario? I do like the idea. It would be nice to play TW on a something smaller than Huge map every once in a while.
I don’t think so, but I’m not as well versed in the Total War games as others that post here. I’ve always thought it would be neat, sort of like a Civ game with great combat and better diplomacy, but the Warhammer games really drove home how great that could, potentially, be.
Yeah I don’t think any TW has ever done that, but I agree it’s a good idea! (Though nontrivial to implement and “balance”, of course.)
I think that sort of niche has usually been covered in TW by custom battles (even with randomly generated armies), though of course that’s quite different.
SlyFrog
1874
I’ve long wanted a random map for Total War games, but I doubt that we will ever see it. First, because the games are usually historicals based on specific time periods and geographies (and even the ones that aren’t are based on a specific world and lore, like Warhammer). Second, the way the games are set up, they seem to be designed to be balanced around certain resources being in certain places, etc. Procedural generation would probably end up taking a lot of efforts and changes to the game type.
I had this same thought as well, I suppose you could have pre-set tiles with neighbors and starting factions you were at peace/war with and those tiles themselves were randomly placed, to ensure certain situations in your immediate vicinity, but outside of that radius things could get … weird. Fun Weird.
fdsaion
1876
IIRC there is a mod for random starts.
Bobtree
1877
Strato
1878
If I recall, I kept Numas friendly early game and set up a trade agreement with them. As you have seen, money is the biggest issue and having a little extra income goes places. I did find by the end game my main source of income was in fact taxes though. I honestly can not remember having any further trade agreements beyond what I had with Numas.
The items from the Mortuary Cult aren’t that bad. I do prefer to hoard my jars early on so I could get access to the Lords, but after that, if a hero embedded in an army or a Lord had an empty slot, I was using jars to fill it.
And also everything Tortilla said. Words of wisdom right there.
I’ve found as Vampire Coast I’m razing a lot more settlements… Though I guess that comes in part from knowing I can not hold it effectively and might as well get rid of it. I find it hard to roleplay factions in this game I guess.
I guess it comes back to emphasising what I was saying about building up the main province settlement first. They are more defensible (generally walls, bigger garrison) and therefore harder for the AI to take. As an extension to that, I would also only build up one major province at a time (Khemri capital) and at most, have growth buildings at Zandri and Salt Plains? If you don’t think you can take and hold the province, raze it. There’s always time later to rebuild, and failing that, the AI will build it up and lose half their army in the process. TK does get access to the Necrotect who can instantly build a razed settlement to T3 for cost, but well worth it long run with the time saving.
Yes, their units are garbage. I liked the challenge of the Tomb Kings though because it encouraged me to try different playstyles in battle. Less shieldwall and archer fire and more focusing on individual units like chariots and constructs. The shieldwall can fend for itself while I would spend my time in a fight maneuvering other units around the map. I certainly can empathise with the frustration you feel. Frequently, I’d have to bring two stacks to deal with just one. But once TK get their higher tier units online, things do change. The Catapults (or the Casket of Souls) are a great place to start because they let your aggressive army fight in a more defensible position.
ShivaX
1879
Well I was giving Khalida a try in ME and basically it went like this:
Fight some vampires, take over the province, lose a minor settlement to a vampire revolution in the process (had to let it happen to take Lehmia, not a big loss). Malus shows up and raids. Beat Malus. Kroq-gar declares war on me. Kroq-gar shows up with multiple Carnos, several Stegadons and two armies. Watch Kroq take everything because I can’t kill that shit with 4 skeleton archers and 2 chariots. Go to bed.
ShivaX Queen Khalida is the BEST. On mortal empires that is a tough one… but It can be done. Try again. TK are a special case. prioritize more armies.
Prioritize MORE armies…
Plus you are in a very convenient spot. You clear that area and…
ShivaX
1881
I’ll probably try again, but two armies of chaff don’t do much to Sauruses and dinosaurs and there aren’t many options for money-making fights. I mean I never even got to Tier 2 units before Korq decided to crush me in a wave of dinos, presumably from the Rite.
ShivaX
1882
Me: I got some ushabti finally.
Kroq:
I can’t even.
Ushabti can’t beat Sauruses so I’m sure they’ll work great against Carnos.
Hint: They didn’t. We couldn’t even get one Carno below 75%.
Strato
1883
Truth be told, that looks like a rough stack for any army to face. Worse is that the best counter you could have would either be Necrosphinx or Bone Giant supported by Tomb Guard and/or Necropolis Knights, none of which would be available at your stage of the game. The easiest counter would be Skeleton Warriors with Spears, but they’ll get trampled all the same. By turn 36 though, you should have researched enough to have a second army?
I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve had you waste your time. I’ve never tried Khalida before. To me, the Lizards were like the final boss on my path to victory. Most things on the journey were fairly straight forward (except Dwarves who roasted my arse) but the lizards were a solid threat where I frequently had two co-ordinated stacks pushing South through the “Africa” continent.
