Here We Go Boyz, WAAAGGGHHH! The Total War:Warhammer thread

[SirFozzie]

The game comes out on Tuesday the 24th. This is what comes with the game.

A Grand Campaign featuring five playable races:

Orcs
Empire
Dwarves
Vampire Counts
Chaos

There are other nations to be added: Brettonia is available as a multiplayer race, and will be added to the Campaign down the line.

Multiplayer battles are supported, as is a Co-Op Campaign.

The game is getting rave reviews, currently an 86 score on Metacritic after 33 reviews.


Each race has their own strengths:

The Orcs are basically a Tide of Greenskins option, they get bonuses the more fights they get in, but should you rout one of their armies, it will take them some time to recover. Their main rivals are the Dwarves. They gain money by looting (and can replenish forces by eating captives after a battle). Life is cheap to the Orcs, their catapult fires a Goblin with wings that you can guide into the enemy in a Cannon, I mean a Goblinball. Get into enough fights and win), and all the other Orcs will flock to your banner in a giant WAAAGHHH!

The Dwarves are the toughest race in the game. They have basic units that will die in place rather then run. They have access to cannons, gyrocopters and can travel via underground passages. They gain extra money by removing Grudges. (Someone did you wrong? Raided one of your cities? Welched on a debt? (gasp) SPILLED A DWARF'S BEER?, that earns you a spot in the Dwarves Book of Grudges, and you get extra loot the bigger the grudge you cross off. Dwarves do not use magic, so that is a very different playstyle.

The Vampire Counts are your standard undead race. They have some of the more powerful magic, and the best thing about an undead army.. if you win, you can raise the bodies of the slain enemy to add to your forces. They spread Vampiric Corruption where they go. And they need to spread the corruption, as they take attrition in lands that do not have the corruption (while other races take attrition in lands that are corrupted by the Vampires). One important thing: There are no ranged units in a VC army. So your mission is to get into melee range ASAP

The Empire? Well, they are your standard human army. Well, if you include tanks that run on steam, crossbowmen, spearmen and the like. They are fairly average, and if you've played TW games before, they're standard. They usually ally with the Dwarves against the Orcs and Vampire Counts

Brettonia is basically Camelot-ish English/French: Knights and peasants. Not much ranged attack (How unchivalrous!). They do not start in the grand campaign, but will be added as free DLC down the road.

And Chaos? Well, they live in the North, inhospitable terrain for any of their enemies, and come flooding out in an attempt to take over the world. Their units try to destroy everything for the glory of their Dark Gods. To win a game as any other race, you must not only defeat your rivals.. but manage to wound the Chaos Lord behind the vast incursion. Good luck with that.


Couple Reviews:
Total War: Warhammer review | PC Gamer
Game Informer Review

Creative Assembly have released copies of the games to reviewers and streamers (in part because a couple of their past releases were buggy to the point that people were leery of buying it unseen.) If you want to see gameplay before release, you may check it out on Twitch.TV

Twitch

[SirFozzie]

Here's their plans for additional Free and Paid DLC, as well as expansion packs:

Total War: WARHAMMER Future Content Blog - Total War Wiki

[Groundhog]

I enjoyed Shogun 2 for the setting, but nearly every other TW game over the past, jeez, maybe decade, has really disappointed me. I think with the fantasy background (and Warhammer, to boot) this could finally be the one to live up to its billing. Doing my best to wait for reviews, however.

[Brian Swartz]

After Rome 2 I'm off the TW bandwagon, but with some of the mods for the original TW:Rome I played the snot out of it. With this there's no need for 'historical accuracy'. All depends on how well they do with the AI and intelligently designed system IMO. Could be quite fun -- I'll be watching.

[Groundhog]

I managed to resist.... for all of 5 seconds.

Early impressions are that it's fun - the world map part of the game is definitely streamlined compared to the more recent TW games I've played. 'Dumbed down' might be a more polite way to put it and I'm sure a lot of folks won't be happy about it, but I think it works fine in this setting. Combat is king here, and so far it seems fun.

[MizzouRah]

I'm going to get my TW feet wet in about an hour.

[Eaglesfan27]

I'd normally be all over this, but I'm hooked on Stellaris.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

I'd normally be all over this, but I'm hooked on Stellaris.

I think it's the Marine in me. So far, I really love being able to command my army!

[Groundhog]

Stellaris hooked me for one session, but I haven't had the motivation to fire it up again yet, although I'm sure it will come (especially once a full-featured WH40K mod is released).

I can see myself getting some play out of TW:W before it gets old, though - the whole fantasy/magic/hero developing side of this feels really fresh for what has been a tired, stagnant series up until now. Would love to see both more races and more units, but both will come (at a cost, to be fair).

[MizzouRah]

I saw a post and it said all of the DLC to come is free?

[Critch]

Green Man Gaming has a 20% off coupon code, if that's enough to sway anybody. WAR20, brings it down to $47.99

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I saw a post and it said all of the DLC to come is free?

There are three categories of things to come for TW:W

1. Free DLC
2. Paid DLC
3. Large Expansions (which will add areas to the map and new nations to play)

you can see their plans in the (edit) second post.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

There are three categories of things to come for TW:W

1. Free DLC
2. Paid DLC
3. Large Expansions (which will add areas to the map and new nations to play)

you can see their plans in the (edit) second post.

Ok, thanks.

[Ned Doolittle]

If I order from Green Man Gaming can I download it or do I have to wait for the physical game to come in the mail? Nice discount but I sorta want to have it quickly. I'm gonna buy it for my little man as a reward on the condition that he does all his work in school and behaves, he gets one point for every day he's good and I told him once he gets 10 pts he'll have the game (he's up to 3 pts). Wanna make sure this game is all set to go the day he gets his 10th pt. Been showing him game footage of this game and he's psyched to play it (as am I oops did I say that out loud?). He's 7 and loves Total War (and specifically the massive LOTR mod for it).

[Critch]

If you order from Green Man Gaming, they send you a Steam code. You then register the code with Steam and download just like a regular Steam game.

I ordered this afternoon, no problems at all.

[Ned Doolittle]

Originally Posted by Critch

If you order from Green Man Gaming, they send you a Steam code. You then register the code with Steam and download just like a regular Steam game.

I ordered this afternoon, no problems at all.

Awesome!

[Eaglesfan27]

Not to be all JBMagic, but how is the AI? Trying to decide if I should buy this.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

Not to be all JBMagic, but how is the AI? Trying to decide if I should buy this.

I'm a n00b and barely holding my own on easy.

[Groundhog]

Again, I don't know how the last couple of TW games have been as far as the campaign map goes, but I've found the AI here pretty good. The 'rebel' type factions of your own race that reside around your initial city are no joke, and the AI does a solid job of keeping their multiple army stacks close enough to support each other if you attack. Starving out enemy cities takes a long time, and the AI will send help, and divert itself from attacking your cities to defend their own.

It's hard to say how the battle AI is yet, but I win most the battles I'm favoured in, and lose most of those I'm not.

[SirFozzie]

Key Tip: If a quest is halfway across the map, and you can't get to it, if you look at it on the quest log, there's a button you can press to teleport right to it for 5000G

[SirFozzie]

Dola: If you find agent spam getting annoying, try out this mod: It allows only aggresive actions by you. (other factions can still spread corruption, etcetera, but I think agents are a bit too powerful when it comes to taking down leaders/lords)

Steam Workshop :: No Agressive Agent (easy ver.)

[Critch]

Started off as Dwarfs, built a little warrior-heavy army and sent them out to kick the greenskins out of the valley and unify the Silver Road province. Took some loses along the way but brought the province back together and started building up the three towns. Right then a full 20-unit Ork army strolled through the neighbors land, turned right and wandered down the Silver Road destroying all my towns, the garrisons and my totally out-classed army.

Decided to read a "how to play Dwarfs" guide and start again.

Second try I unified the valley with nothing but Decisive Victories, really kicking greenskin butt. Then a 20-unit Ork army wandered through my neighbors land, turned right, strolled down the Silver Road and destroyed all my towns and my army again.

[Ned Doolittle]

The game is fun so far. Played 3 battles and won two of them. I was afraid purchasing the game through green man gaming at the discounted price would prevent me from getting the Chaos army but that's not the case. Very worth it to get the $12 discount. So much more fun to play as the evil factions as far as battles go, to have a giant or a ridiculously huge spider on your side is much more fun than say The Empire.

[Critch]

Started again as the Dwarfs. Same old same old, the dwarf warriors strolled out and cleared the valley, unified the Silver road province. This time they used the Underway to get into the Ork lands and razed the most northern city (almost unprotected), and got back into the Dwarf valley in time for the traditional 20-unit greenskins army arriving. Looks like the early stages of the game are pretty linear.

This time my Dwarf army was 19-units and not so warrior heavy, so more of a match for the Ork raiders. Both sides lined up, fired off their long range weapons at each other (I like the look of the Ork cannon thing with kamikaze goblins landing in the Dwarf frontlines) and then things went wrong for the game. While the Dwarf lines stood and watched, the Orks went crazy, they'd form a formation then all run back into the middle and form a different formation, then all run etc etc etc. I left it 20 minutes just watching, by then the Orks were still running around but were exhausted so it was time to crush them.

On the back of that fairly cheap decisive victory, my province was safe. The Dwarfs formed a confederation with the dwarf empire to the west (cant remember the name) and I'm now up to 7 settlements and 2 armies.

I'm fairly enjoying the game, but the large battles feel fairly chaotic, once it all kicks off I'm not sure how much strategy is actually involved. I'm not sure that will keep my attention long term. I had the same problem with large scale battles in previous Total Wars, but it took longer to get to them in the older games.

A tentative positive rating so far, from me.

[MizzouRah]

Yeah.. it can be a PITA on the larger scale battles. I wish there was some command center or something.

[Groundhog]

I pause a LOT during battles, and try and keep my formation as I march forward, but I wish cavalry and infantry marched at the same speed. Once battle starts I also try to keep my formation for as long as possible, before bringing other troops around on the flanks.

[SirFozzie]

I'm not playing now or I'd check, but I think if you group them, they advance at the same rate. I usually use some of my cavalry as bait, get them charging the cavalry (pulling them out of a good war front), then back the cavalry out, then my infantry unit charges them while they're out of position, then my cavalry circles around and hits.

[Groundhog]

Ahh thanks, I'll give that a shot. I haven't used grouping at all, just 'ctrl+a' then the forward arrow to advance.

[SirFozzie]

I usually group up my ranged units to focus fire down a group at a time (or two crossbowmen/quarrelers to a target, depending on how many units they have)

[Critch]

First DLC is on sale on steam, 2 weeks til it's actually released. Call of the Beastmen is a single race (Beastmen, there's a hint in the title), two lords and a Beastman campaign. $20 for a single race with a seriously generous 10% off for pre-order.

F that.

They've apparently said that when the game is complete there will be 15 races, at $20 for each as DLC it's not going to be cheap.

[NobodyHere]

So this game has been out for a while, what's the general opinion of it?

[Groundhog]

I haven't played it for a few weeks (mostly due to lack of time), but overall I prefer it to any TW game I've played for awhile. The variety in the different races as far as the campaign map goes is refreshing, but the combat still feels messy to me - I'm a turn-based kinda guy though.

[Critch]

Almost the same as Groundhog. Liked it, better than other TW games, but havent played it for a few weeks (mainly because my laptop fan has started screaming in pain whenever anything uses the graphics card). And I'm not sure I like the big massed battles, not sure how much input I have other than initial setup.