DeepT
1704
My excitement is kind of muted. While the Chaos dwarves look cool, the fundamental issue of the AI being really, really bad means that there will be no challenge beyond figuring out the game play mechanics of the dwarves.
In my current run, which I am just doing as an experiment, I am playing Bellacore on hard/hard. I had set the black pyramid as the endgame crisis to start as soon as possible at 200% strength. Well the AI sent 3 stacks toward me from way down south which was a idiotic thing to do. Now at turn 134 the black pyramid faction has not even conquered its own continent, and is now somewhat weak in strength and I am not sure how much longer it will last. This without me doing anything at all to it other than kill its 3 armies it sent up north. Also I popped a portal nearby so I could see the area near the pyramid. It never keeps any troops around to protect it.
Meanwhile having a bunch of vassals running around the old world, I can most of the map most of the time, and I just watch in dismay how the AI factions just do nothing or make dumb ass decision after dumb ass decision all the time.
For example, the world walkers were in the Britiania area raiding for like 100 turns. It was a tiny army that could be crushed. The other AIs never bothered with it. Also the world walkers never built a 2nd army despite having 3 settlements. It was 100 turns of not much going on with that.
Also the other AIs doing stupid shit like sacking settlements of the skaven and never bothering to raze or capture them so the skeaven were never properly dealt with. Taking cities deep in chaos country that they could not possibly hold on it, etc…
So while this new race may be neat, the world its going to play in is not going to be very fun.
I actually agree the End Game scenarios actually kind of suck, in that it’s just handing a random side a bunch of troops and telling ‘em to go have fun.
Still think Attila’s 4 Huns of the Apocalypse that I won playing the Ostrogoths in an early build was the best time I’ve ever had with a Total War game. Running away to Spain and beating the Huns at the last minute while literally all Europe was destroyed kind of beats Chaos factions building cities here.
ShivaX
1706
Campaign play is out in the wild. Throwing up Arkcard because he’s doing it when I posted this.
Tim_N
1708
For those interested, immortal empires turn times (measured on turn 1) dropped from 24s to 14s when upgrading my cpu from the 3700x to the 7950x3d.
ShivaX
1710
Until we get patch notes and also for people who don’t read patch notes anyway:
DeepT
1711
That is nice, but I really wish the would improve the strategic AI. The sheer stupidity of the AI just kills my interest in the game. It is just not challenging.
You should probably bang that drum on the CA forums where it will do some good. I personally don’t have a problem with the strategic AI, it provies me with plenty of challenge. I realize that doesn’t help you, though! :) Also I rarely play into the end game stuff anyway, by the time I get into a groove where I know I’ll win, I roll up a new game.
DeepT
1713
You see, that is the problem. That point where I know where I will win isn’t that many turns out. I never “finish” maps because I get bored. In fact, I could technically say Ill win the game on turn 1, so what is the point? Sure I get setbacks and whatnot, but I know Ill recover. Its just delays the inevitable win. I can’t even remember the last time I lost a game.
L O L I get it you’re better at this game, and I am! :)
Honestly, sounds like it’s time to move on? Challenge yourself with new and different games you haven’t mastered?
Personally, I don’t play games like this to win or be challenged, but rather because playing the game is fun and enjoyable way to pass the time. I don’t need the AI the play perfect or challenge me if I needed that I will play against humans.
DeepT
1715
Warhammer 3 is fairly new, at least if you only count the time since IE was put out. I have very little time in WH3. I would like to get far more time in it than I have. Fundamentally the game looks really good. The chaos dwarves look awesome, but I know what Ill be in for, which is figuring out their mechanics, and then I could own the world without much of a challenge.
WH3 is so close to being a game I could get many 100s of hours out of, if only the AI was a little bit better and the anti-player bias (which makes the AI easier to beat) was toned down somewhat.
How many hours do you have in W1 and W2?
I agree, the antiplayer bias can be infuriating - specifically seeing an enemy army literally walking past undefended settlements from other factions in order to get to the player ASAP, or an enemy main army with LL spending a dozen turns at sea in order to invade the player’s homeland.
However, potentially some good news for a future patch!
(I am still very much enjoying WH3 Immortal Empires, so can’t wait for the DLC and this balance fix. )
"Total War: Warhammer 3 anti-player bias may get a fix
AI factions bee-lining towards the players, ignoring threats toward their own interests along the way, and being a general pain in the butt is nothing new in Total War: Warhammer. However, it may be that these dark times will be left behind us in the not-so-distant future: “We found some interesting things with regard to anti-player bias recently in the code base,” the developers stated. “So we are now actively looking to make some positive changes here for you all.” While these changes won’t be ready to go out in time with update 3.0, the team is looking to push them out in “an update(s) thereafter.”
https://videogames.si.com/news/total-war-warhammer-3-anti-player-bias-fix
Patch 3.0 Notes are up now
Looks like the AI should perform better in both battles (mainly sieges) and perhaps more significantly, in the campaign. From the patch notes:
CAMPAIGN AI
- Adjusted the Strategic Threat Calculations for Immortal Empires. Direct actions against a faction are now much more important in that calculation, and the importance of distance scaling has been increased, improving the way AI will select the most relevant threats.
- Further tweaks have been made to AI’s recruitment priorities to favour higher value units. Additionally, the AI will place more weight on building a recruitment building if they are without one.
- Fixed various cases of the AI trying to enter stances which were invalid, leading to it trying to perform moves which were invalid.
- Fixed the AI control option for allied armies not showing when being attacked by an enemy.
- Fixed cases of the AI trying to apply Commandments to provinces that it didn’t own.
- Fixed a bug which meant that the AI became less (as opposed to more) likely to generate a peace deal the further away the target was.
- All factions now care about their strategic situation when generating a war declaration goal.
- Improved AI performance in the first turn of the game.
- Minor AI factions should now be more accepting of vassalisation.
- Fixed some cases where the AI attempting to calculate the strength of a force was resulting in incorrect behaviour.
- Reduced the distance required for the maximum distance modifiers to be applied in both deal generation and deal evaluation.
- War declaration on a faction of the same subculture is now less likely for High Elf major, Empire major and all Lizardmen factions.
- All factions now consider war losses when evaluating a peace deal. Previously, Skaven majors, Dwarfs and Tomb Kings were not.
Under magic, I saw a lot of nerfs for stationary vortex spells (they cost more winds of magic). Flame Storm (fire magic’s moving vortex spell) also now moves at half speed and got a visual overhaul, which to me makes it more useful and less likely to spend half its time roaming the countryside instead of incinerating my enemies.
It also looks like chariots and other articulated vehicles will be able to turn better, so its not as important to drive clear through an enemy unit. I still don’t know how much I’ll use them since they require so much micro.
Also, missile units line of sight should be blocked less by objects on the battlefield. They could get pretty wonky.
ShivaX
1719
Heads up that your Total War Access and Steam link might need to be refreshed.
The game will see you offline and you can’t do anything online with it if you don’t do said refresh.
My Account > Linked Accounts > Steam> Refresh
A weird error that probably only hit me knowing my luck, but still in case anyone else runs into it.
Edit: Also “dashboard.totalwar.com” is somehow “account.creative-assembly.com” and also an Xbox Login on Discourse. Because sure, why not?
Well, since we’re aiming to get a co-op campaign going tonight I went ahead and did it. I had to sign in with my Steam account and approve it from the mobile app via QR code, so it was pretty easy, and then when I got signed in I did “refresh” anyway just in case.
KevinC
1721
I thought I was in the Age of Wonders 4 thread and was super excited for a second! :)
ShivaX
1722
Well the Reddit solution I searched for was 6 months old and had 15 people viewing it, so I assume it’s just a thing.
If “refresh” was an option odds are you needed to do it. I think it turns to something else once it’s working.
Hopefully not - it said refresh after I did the refresh. I assume it’s just something you can do if you want to or need to?
