From the videos I’ve seen, you can trade for settlements as long as it is not the last settlement the faction has.
As to the “recruit units from allies”, the video @MisterMourning linked shows (starting at 3:35) that if you have some sort of alliance (defensive or military) you can build an outpost in your ally’s territory. From there you can recruit units (up to Tier 3, as of now) by spending “allegiance,” a new type of currency (you will then have to pay regular currency to support them).
The new “allegiance” currency also ups all kinds of diplomatic possibilities but those are covered in the video.
Finally. Oh wow… been wanting to hold out on this one until they get the Mortal Empires up and running, but this makes it very hard indeed to resist. Royal Throne DLC coming out soon… don’t have time for two time-consuming games at the same time… argh.
This was my predicament as well. My solution was to give myself over entirely to CK3 once the DLC hits (although I have not informed my wife of this part yet), and then will have hopefully built up enough playtime to be able to switch over to Warhammer 3 once it’s out. Can always revisit Crusader Kings 3 again later on.
I’ve been meaning to give Warhammer 2 a try for probably years. It constantly hovers near the top of my backlog. I take it I should probably just jump to this one if I play? I do have Gamepass.
If you need something to play, I’d do a Vortex campaign in Warhammer 2. It’s super fun and I loved it. Then when 3 comes out you’ll have a new campaign type to play.
One of the small improvements to Warhammer 3 that I am really excited about is the ability to let the AI auto-upgrade buildings in a province and allocate skill points on characters.
I love Warhammer 2 but it really is one of those games where as the game progresses the amount of micro goes up and the proportion of time spent on interesting decisions goes down hard. In late game it almost feels like 90% of my time was upgrading buildings, allocating skill points for characters that didn’t matter, and waiting for my next turn.
This AI option is like manna from heaven, can’t wait to let the AI handle every province and character except the important few.
It doesn’t look like either of the earlier games are on Game Pass. I’d say wait a week until TW: WH3 is out on Game Pass and then check it out then.
As @Tim_N alludes to, each version has general improvements that just make the game easier to play and eliminate minor annoyances of earlier versions.
The only reason I can think of to grab one of the earlier versions first is if you prefer the base races for the earlier games: TW: WH1 (Empire, Dwarves, Greenskins, Vampire Counts) or TW: WH2 (High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, Skaven Ratmen). There’s also a whole bunch of DLC races. Personally I find it hard to play TW: WH1 now just because the game engine has improved so much in TW: WH2. But for example, if you really love Dwarves you could pickup TW: WH1 instead of waiting for races you are less interested in with TW: WH3.
If you do decide to get one of the earlier games, make sure you get it on whichever platform (Steam/Epic/Microsoft Store) you’re planning to play TW: WH3 on, as owning an earlier version will unlock the races for TW: WH3 when the full world campaign is released for free (hopefully a month or so after the game is out). Free race unlocks from prior purchases do not transfer between stores, so for example, even though I have Game Pass, I’m buying TW: WH3 on Steam since that’s where I’ve paid for all the previous races.
Count me among your brethren. It’s a bit silly when you think about it, as we could play on gamespass at first and just buy it on sale on Steam when the immortal empires map is out (I am a bit more pessimistic than you on the amount of time it will take them to bring it out).
But then the playtime and achievements would be reset to 0, and you’d have to buy the ogre dlc, and that’s enough to convince my brain to preorder it on Steam.
I know I’m not really meant for these games because I frequently think “damn, I’ve got to manually fight this dumb army before I can end turn and upgrade my Dark Barracks of the Damned II to a Dark Barracks of the Damned III”
It isn’t really so much that I need something right now. More so that when I do play it does 3 seem to have enough improvements that that would be the one to go to, especially since I have gamepass? I don’t have a problem waiting. I have a weird relationship with TW games. I’ve been dabbling in the TW series since the beginning, but I’ve never finished a campaign. I came closest with TW Warhammer 1 when I played a Dwarf campaign and made it pretty far. I enjoyed most of my time in that campaign. My problem is that I have a difficult time balancing being a control freak and playing out every battle and deciding which battles to auto resolve. I get burned out. I own TW Warhammer 2, but never tried it.
Any advice how to deal with my issue? Does #2 or #3 have a feature like Age of Wonders Planetfall where you can autoresolve and then play it out instead if the auto resolve results are bad? I guess I could save and reload but that would get tedious.
What percentage of battles do you guys play out and how do you decide which ones? I kinda wish there was some game play mechanic that forced the player to pick and choose and not be able to play out each one.
I already have TWW 1 and 2, along with most DLC (yes I have a problem) on Steam so I’m pretty much set. I don’t really have any preferred races - I don’t really know any Warhammer lore other than playing some other Warhammer based computer games. I have that stuff on Steam, so my intention is that if I get into 3 I will pick it up on Steam, but I don’t want to do so if I bail in my first campaign.
I guess in typing all that out what I should do is clear. Wait for #3 on Game Pass so I don’t burn out prematurely by playing #2. I can always go back and play #2 campaigns if #3 hooks me.
Warhammer 2 provides a good amount of information now about what will happen if you auto-resolve: whether you win and how much losses you will take. From my vague recollection Warhammer 1 didn’t have this. I think it will help you decide which to fight yourself.
For instance, if the game tells me that a matchup is a “decisive victory” with minimal losses, why bother playing it in person? Those are the least interesting fights to play out. If the auto-resolve will mean a defeat, I will always play the fight out even if I end up losing as well, just to try and minimise casualties on my most treasured units. If the auto-resolve will yield a close/pyrrhic victory I will usually play it out, but not always if the losses are manageable.
Newer is always better. But you’ll be missing out on some amazing characters and races that 2 introduced. But, if you don’t think you’ll want to finish a campaign and want to do a 1 and done, then wait for 3 as it’s got some neat new stuff. I too have a tough time finishing campaigns in every game I play, but with Warhammer 2 I had no problem. The Vortex campaign really pushes you along. Finishing a Mortal Empires campaign on the other hand? I got too bored and never did - out of 5 starts.
Lets just hope the AI can make good choices. You can see how terrible it is in WH2 when you confederate someone and then look at the picked skills for a level 20 lord and think, WTF?! Its harder to tell with captured settlements, but I also suspect that the AI is equally terrible at those as well.
This maybe an option that will be better left turned off except for heroes that you have gotten what you want and do not care about the rest of the points anymore.
Just FYI you can and should disable the “unassigned skill points” alert at a certain point in your WH2 campaign. Once you hit mid game you can just assign them as needed, there isn’t any compelling reason you need +3 melee defense unless you are about to go into the hardest fight of your life, and if you see that coming you can spend them before the battle.
Saves me a vast amount of irritation at least. Obviously now and then you’ll immediately want things like a replenishment % buff or upkeep reduction but it’s pretty easy to know when those times are.
I pretty much only play battles that show the autoresolve odds are Close Victory or worse, and sometimes I autoresolve those or even a Pyrrhic Victory if I can’t be bothered. But then I am not a control freak and often wish I had less control in strategy games, as I prefer a more realistic command model, although for my dwarves ‘n’ dragons I’m willing to let it go. I also find that when the machine tells me I’m going to get a close or pyrrhic victory and I fight it out, thinking, “I can do better than that,” often times the machine was right and I actually couldn’t do better than that.
