|
 They should have called it Total Warhammer Total Warhammer is the match made in heaven between the Total War videogame franchise and the Warhammer tabletop game.  The Total War gameplay formula consists of two parts, a turn-based strategic map where empire building, diplomacy and army movement takes place, and real-time tactical battles with up to thousands of individual soldiers fighting at once.  The Warhammer world is a dark fantasy setting that is exceedingly ridiculous but also somehow very well-realized in it's brooding and operatic tone. It was a tabletop painting and gaming hobby for several decades. Warhammer is notable for its "dark and gritty" background world, which featured a culture similar in appearance to Early Modern Germany crossed with Tolkien's Middle-earth. "Chaos" was central to the setting, as the forces of Chaos are unceasingly attempting to tear the mortal world asunder. The world itself was populated with a variety of races such as humans, high elves, dark elves, wood elves, dwarfs, undead, orcs, lizardmen, and other creatures familiar to many fantasy/role-playing settings. -Wikipedia I am going to make text posts about my strategy map turns and post videos of the tactical battles. Total Diplomacy-hammer While it's common to complete Total War campaigns primarily through conquest, this playthrough will be a bit different as I will take a more diplomatic approach to obtaining victory. What's more, I'll be playing on the hardest ("legendary") difficulty, which makes the AI thoroughly obstinate in agreeing to deals in addition to all the usual cheating you'd expect an AI to get up to on high difficulty modes. Otherwise I'll be using ultra size settings and no mods.
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 19:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 15:09 |
|
|
 There are a lot of factions to choose from since I have all the DLC (there's a lot of it) but with my diplomacy theme in mind I'm going to play as The Empire. They have the most diplomatic options and benefit the most from diplomacy. The Empire is a fantastical version of the Holy Roman Empire from real world history. It is a diverse, feudal nation with little central control, theoretically led by an Emperor who is elected by the  There's several choices of campaign leader. This determines which character you start the game with and what extra troops they bring, but you can unlock all of them eventually over the course of a campaign. Naturally, there can be no other choice for my legendary lord than Emperor Karl Franz, reputedly the greatest statesman of the Old World. If anybody can convince the gore-soaked psychopaths of this land to come together in unity it will be this great man. Although in the Warhammer world being the best politician is synonymous with being the best at smashing peoples heads in, so it's not clear what difference any of this makes to anything. Apparently Karl Franz is a reference to history somehow but I'm not sure what that is.  Karl Franz' starting army is a mixed bag. He gets a unit of Reiksguard knights which are an excellent unit early on (there's an extensive online wiki for units if you're interested: http://totalwarwarhammer.gamepedia.com/Reiksguard), but his Handgunners and Halberdiers are mediocre early on in the game. They are armour-piercing units but you don't see too many heavily armoured units until later on. I'll probably disband at least the Halberdiers at some point to save gold on their high upkeep. His campaign bonus of +5% army speed on the campaign map is probably one of the better ones, and I won't sniff at upkeep reduction on elite units. Turn 1  There's going to be a lot to do on turn 1 as we need to take stock of the situation. Karl Franz, Elector Count of Reikland and Prince of Altdorf, only recently won the election and became the rightful Emperor of his fractious realm. His rule is absolute! Or at least that's what he keeps shouting at me when I click on him. But actually, the other eleven Elector Counts rule their provinces autonomously and the Emperor has limited direct control over them. We accept this political reality privately, even if Franz won't stop shouting to the contrary in public, and will work around it. We'll form a nation of men through deft diplomacy, seeking strength through unity and social bonds rather than conquest. We might have to do a bit of conquest. Karl Franz carries Ghal Maraz, the famed hammer of Sigmar Heldenhammer, founder and patron god of of The Empire. Naturally, when you wield the Hammer of God the first thing you are going to want to do is use your mighty symbol of office as part of an innovative social media campaign to build up your personal brand through positive association, and Franz is nothing if not a shrewd brand manager. It is a time of technological progress; we'll have the printing presses let all the peasants know who's boss.  These are the campaign objectives. I need to unify The Empire and crush the bad guys. We've discussed the political nature of The Empire. Chaos are the big threat to the Warhammer world: one day the hordes of heavy-metal nihilists will swarm down from the Chaos Wastes and attempt to burn our nation to the ground. The greater Chaos invasion comes sooner if you grow large early on and I want to avoid that, biding my time in preparation instead. The Vampire Counts of Sylvania are scarcely less of a threat and led by pretenders to the Imperial throne, the Von Carstein "family". But when Sylvania sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with them. They're bringing zombies. They're bringing skeletons. They're necromancers. And some, I assume, are good people. They will probably attempt to conquer the neighbouring Imperial provinces and will need to be contained early on. Anyway, our lands?  Right now, the Emperor controls his ancestral seat of Altdorf, and not much else. In fact, his own province has risen up in rebellion against him! Clearly, the Franz media brand hasn't had enough time to do it's work. And the newly-elected emperor cannot afford to display this sort of weakness to his nominal subjects the other Elector Counts. All of whom can point to the fact that they actually control their own provinces. We are actually quite small compared to the rest of the game's factions, most of whom start with three or more cities and towns. The rebels must be crushed quickly in order for us to keep up. Let's check the diplomatic situation:  Checking the diplomacy screen, we can see what the political situation is like. The Empire campaign is slightly different each time you play because a random set of Imperial provinces are slapped with the "Imperial aversion" trait, which makes diplomacy with them harder. In this run it is Marienburg, Middenland, Talabecland, Wissenland, Nordland, Ostland and Stirland who are unhappy with Emperor Franz. That is six out of the total of 10 other Imperial factions (besides Reikland secessionists), which complicates my strategy as I've often seen way fewer than that get the diplomacy penalty. How did we even win the election if everybody hates us?! It was clearly a bruising and divisive campaign... but we can heal these wounds. We can inflict gorier wounds on our enemies.  One problem is this rear end in a top hat, Boris Rodham Todbringer. It was his turn to be emperor, but our important victory was beautiful. It seems like Boris may have won the popular vote among the Counts, but there are other members of the electoral college. In ~*the lore*~ there are two religious electors; the Grand Theogonist of Sigmar (Volkmar the Grim), and the leader of the Cult of Ulric (Emil Valgeir). Unlike everybody else, Volkmar gets to vote three times in the election and votes for a Sigmarite candidate (such as Franz), whereas Ar-Ulric Emil Valgeir only gets one vote and votes for an Ulrican (like Todbringer). This is totally fair and Sigmar requires everybody to accept this legitimate result and move on. On the other hand, The Empire begins the game with the most existing diplomatic agreements out of any faction. There's a whole bunch of non-aggression pacts, which is a nice stepping-stone to getting better agreements, and a couple of military access agreements that allow my troops to travel through others lands without diplomatic penalties.  There's '  Now, for our non-human neighbours. In the mountains to the south lie Dwarf settlements, some occupied by goblins.  Skarsnik's Crooked Moon tribe are a nearby threat. Most greenskin factions are a mix or orcs and goblins but the Crooked Moon are a goblin tribe and only bring those, making them a bit easier to fight. But Skarsnik does start off with a giant Arachnarok Spider to make up for it which is a notable early-game threat. Orcs & goblins are almost always hostile, aggressive and untrustworthy (and Skarsnik already hates us) so there won't be much point in diplomacy with them. It's unlikely that they will attack me early on however, simply because they are already waging a war in the mountains against the dwarfs of Karak Norn. But if their power is left unchecked they may defeat the dwarfs; that's how you get goblins all over your mountain borders and we don't want that. I am going to declare war on Skarsnik right away. Not only will this give me an immediate boost in diplomatic standings with nearby dwarf and imperial factions but I'll get further diplomatic boosts from fighting battles against the goblins. That ought to make me some friends and I might even get to loot a fallen dwarf stronghold for it's gold. I'll have to do so while also crushing the rebellion.   Despite his ungrateful attitude I've just given Brokk of Karak Norn some good news, so our standings have improved with him simply from declaring war on the nearby gobbos. To further cement our relationship I'm going to sling this dwarf his favourite thing in the world (gold). Not only would I rather have dwarfs as neighbours than goblins, but I want to have some agreements with them in place too. Without at least a non-aggression pact, the dwarfs have a nasty habit of joining your enemies in wars against you at the worst moment. But they typically have the "reliable" trait which offsets that when you have agreements. They are assholes but they are not back-stabbing assholes.  I could use some gold myself, what with this largesse depleting my own gold reserves. I know from experience that Bretonnia is very stingy with trade deals so I won't bother with offering Louen anything for now. On the other hand,  It's best to think of Kislevites as the redshirts of the Warhammer world. They take the brunt of the Chaos invasions, buying time for everybody else. I start the game with a non-agression pact with them. I throw down a small gold offer to tease a trade deal out of them.  I don't actually get much gold at this point because I don't possess any trade goods, but that will change later on. There's at least half a dozen other factions that my port in Altdorf has a trade connection to, but I can't get any deals out of them yet. The difficulty setting makes them obstinate and the diplo penalties to half the Imperial factions certainly aren't helping. With the remainder of my starting pile of gold I'm going to upgrade the barracks in Altdorf.  You get a good chunk of gold at the start of the game, but I'll have less gold per turn after this and I spent almost all of my starting gold this turn. Some people don't like to upgrade the Altdorf Barracks and many even demolish it after a few turns because Altdorf real estate is quite valuable. But I want upgraded troops as fast as I can get them, in particular I need more missile infantry. With better troop production it's less likely that I'll be undone by bad luck on this difficult setting, so I'll skip doing what might otherwise be the optimal alternative (building a barracks elsewhere later on).  I'm done with diplomacy for turn 1. I've made a few early plays to make friends, mostly outside of The Empire. Now Karl Franz wants his province back. I already moved him down the road towards Grunburg. Instead of attacking straight away I'm going to recruit some more Swordsmen, which are our bread-and-butter infantry, and end the turn. AI Turn 1  During the secessionist's first turn they attack Franz while he's still mustering troops so the extra Swordsmen won't be available for this battle. Still, I have a big advantage in unit quality so this ought to be an easy first battle. My main concern is Karl Franz taking too much damage since he's going to have to defeat a succession of enemy heroes over the following turns so I'll be careful to support him with the Handgunners, who can be quite effective at damaging single-model units. Otherwise I'm not worried about anything and I expect the Reiksguard to make short work of these rebels through repeated lance charges. Note that this video has several problems I aim to address for next time. The camera is rather choppy at some points, which is probably because I've been using the non-standard debug camera settings, which I'll replace with the default ingame camera from now onwards. I also left my microphone on even though I wasn't intending to use it. Sadly I already played the battle and moved onto the next turn so there's no opportunity to re-record it, but it isn't that bad. I've been using OBS Studio to record videos and I'll work on my settings. (I added narration to videos from turns 21 onwards) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCpY9u0KUjM Anyway, the battle was a success. Franz took hardly any damage which was the important thing. But some poor micromanagement caused me to lose more Handgunners than I would have liked. After the enemy rout I ran down as many of them as I could with my troops. After the battle I got to choose what to do with the captives:  The choices all have their place, but since I intend to launch another attack next turn I decided to press-gang the rebels into my own army, replenishing my own units. This provides a nice amount of replenishment but it doesn't heal Karl Franz (or other individuals) which is why I wanted to avoid him getting hurt. Mukip fucked around with this message at 11:23 on Apr 23, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 19:28
|
|
|
I'm surprised that Karl franz starts out on foot, even without Deathclaw I would have expected him to be mounted on a horse of sorts.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 19:46
|
|
|
koolkevz666 posted:I'm surprised that Karl franz starts out on foot, even without Deathclaw I would have expected him to be mounted on a horse of sorts. All lords and heroes have skill trees, and mount options are part of that.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 19:57
|
|
|
Mordja posted:All lords and heroes have skill trees, and mount options are part of that. Ah interesting and explains the lack of iconic mount. Kind of strange it is part of a skill upgrade tree I would have thought it would be a purchase option like equipment or something, then again I haven't played the game so will have to see how it goes on. LP is looking good so far, been playing the TT version since I was 12 so will be interesting to see how the video game version goes.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 20:02
|
|
|
Ah, old Warhammer before G.W. decided to completely jump the shark. Shame about that.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 20:09
|
|
|
koolkevz666 posted:LP is looking good so far, been playing the TT version since I was 12 so will be interesting to see how the video game version goes. Game owns (don't look at the Steam reviews, not even once) and I'm surprised at how long it took for someone to do a TWW LP here.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 20:09
|
|
|
Glad you decided to go through with this! Definitely will stay up to date with your progress.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 20:32
|
|
|
This game is pretty much done totally right... I mean I haven't played it in a bit and last I remember mannfred von good at everything was a bit op but otherwise an amazing game. You need steam tanks, glorious steam tanks. Mounts are great if you have the good ones, And I have indeed been waiting for this lp. Dorfs is best though
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 20:54
|
|
|
This is a very good game. I wish I was better at it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 21:03
|
|
|
This is certainly shaping up to be an interesting LP
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 21:04
|
|
|
I just started playing this a few days ago after getting it from Humble Monthly after years of shirking away from these games because they looked too complex. I've had a lot of fun tooling around with the Dwarves so far, though, and I'm excited to see how someone who is actually good at this handles it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 21:11
|
|
|
This game is the bee's fuckin' knees. I also got it from the Humble Bundle for $12, but it would have been a good purchase at full price. I've been gobbling up Youtube LPs but I'm very happy to see an SA-quality LP coming up here. Can't wait to armchair general the armchair general 
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 21:19
|
|
|
This game is really good and I'm liking the LP so far. Good job!
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 21:33
|
|
|
Oh good, I picked this up in the Humble Bundle and I'll love to see how to not suck at this game.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 21:41
|
|
|
Will you be playing the other factions after this? I mean, the Empire's great, but the Brets need a lot more love too!
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 21:45
|
|
|
koolkevz666 posted:I'm surprised that Karl franz starts out on foot, even without Deathclaw I would have expected him to be mounted on a horse of sorts. Yeah, like Mordja said, most lords start on foot, the only exception being Louen Leoncoeur who starts with a horse. Good opening, will be following eagerly.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 21:54
|
|
|
Post in the "New LP" thread, it might get you some extra audience.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 21:58
|
|
|
People might say the Handgunners are mediocre but I still like to use them as an early leader-sniper role, they're quite capable of taking out any of these Empire generals and gaining a large amount of experience from it. Of course, I do use the poo poo out of the Reiksguard because holy poo poo are they useful this early.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 21:58
|
|
|
Seeing as you declared war on Skarsnik right away, I also find those handgunners really helpful at dealing with that horrible spider he has. In recent games I've played I've also found Free Company Militia to be consistently among my highest performing units, at least in early battles, they are good for both doing a little skirmishing, scouting and especially flank fire into unarmored enemies. Great to bring against Empire factions, Greenskins and Beastmen.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 22:07
|
|
|
Free Companies fall off a bit in the very late game but they're useful in almost every situation.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 22:26
|
|
|
Aldorf has a lot loving important buildings competing for extremely limited build space, what with a port and a valuable trade resource in the provence. I like to make grabbing Marienburg early, since it can become an economic powerhourse with a bit of investment, but that was several DLCs and patches ago. During my empire campaign it was pretty much the only province keeping me in the black.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 23:06
|
|
|
Can we be Todbringer? He looks metal as gently caress and I like him.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 23:16
|
|
|
marshmallow creep posted:Can we be Todbringer? He looks metal as gently caress and I like him. Only in multiplayer and custom battles for now. He's the big bad in the Beastmen mini-campaign and you unlock him if you win it. It is rumored that he might be a new Empire campaign Legendary Lord option in an upcoming Free-LC that has only been labeled as "An old friend", but CA has been pretty hush about it. After all the content added to the game the Empire is the only faction without an alternate start. If it's not him the other candidate is Krell, Heinrich Kemmler's undead Chaos Lord buddy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 23:31
|
|
|
CommissarMega posted:Will you be playing the other factions after this? I mean, the Empire's great, but the Brets need a lot more love too! Brets are at their best when they're exploding and the peasants are on fire. Not that I'm biased in favor of the Dwarfs.  This is a fun setting and a great game. Will be following with interest.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 23:42
|
|
|
Klaus88 posted:Aldorf has a lot loving important buildings competing for extremely limited build space, what with a port and a valuable trade resource in the provence. Marienburg is actually really difficult to grab now since Bretonia goes for it within the first couple of turns usually. Even then the fuckers are very strong, and there's an ork force next door that loves to gently caress you up when you siege Marienburg. I pretty much only take them early on if I get lucky and their main army leaves the nest to gently caress up Bretonia and I manage to sneak in just in time.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 00:40
|
|
|
ZearothK posted:Yeah, like Mordja said, most lords start on foot, the only exception being Louen Leoncoeur who starts with a horse. Thorgrim Grudgebearer 
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 00:48
|
|
|
Samovar posted:Ah, old Warhammer before G.W. decided to completely jump the shark. Shame about that. what happened to warhammer?
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 00:57
|
|
|
They blew the world up in a giant thing called the End Times. Chaos wins gg buy our new awful tabletop game instead please.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 01:00
|
|
|
RottenK posted:what happened to warhammer? The short version is they had this long event and set of books called the End Times that blew up the whole world and then relaunched the game in its new form called Age of Sigmar with a whole new lore background and different system of play. Some hate it with a passion, others like the new system and others are in between. There are pros and cons for both sides and generally discussion seems to turn into a flame war when brought up between the groups.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 01:02
|
|
|
botany posted:Marienburg is actually really difficult to grab now since Bretonia goes for it within the first couple of turns usually. Even then the fuckers are very strong, and there's an ork force next door that loves to gently caress you up when you siege Marienburg. I pretty much only take them early on if I get lucky and their main army leaves the nest to gently caress up Bretonia and I manage to sneak in just in time. Thought this was just my games. It's truly annoying.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 02:04
|
|
|
I don't know much about the game Age of Sigmar itself. Though I have heard it has improved. But the setting is way less interesting and cool then the old world. Also everything now has a new really stupid name for some reason. Dwarves = Duradin Elves = Aelves Orcs = Orruks Ogres = Ogors Trolls = Troggoths Lizardmen = Seraphon And then we get to the undead were it gets really painful. Vampires = Soulblights Ghouls = Flesh Eater Skeletons = Deathrattles Zombies = Deathwalkers Ghosts = Nighthaunts
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 02:12
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:I don't know much about the game Age of Sigmar itself. Though I have heard it has improved. But the setting is way less interesting and cool then the old world. Some stupid reason==maximum copyrightability, presumably.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 02:22
|
|
|
Notahippie posted:Some stupid reason==maximum copyrightability, presumably. Yes. Also Lizards + Slann didn't die, they escaped into space on their rocket ships. Unlike Bretonia which was eaten by rats. There really does need to be a better way to heal up heroes. Especially as the horde-y factions. having your warleader on a quarter hp while you're trying to do rolling attacks sucks. Something something bloody auto-resolve something. Veloxyll fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Mar 22, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 02:51
|
|
|
Notahippie posted:Some stupid reason==maximum copyrightability, presumably. Yeah, that's no mystery. As for this game, I also picked it up for $12, even knowing that it probably wouldn't run on my weak computer. It didn't, but someday Moore's Law will mean I'll get a new weak computer that can handle it. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to living vicariously through this LP. Skarsnik was a miniature that I picked up when I was young and enchanted by the coolness of WFB (and also by Goblins in general), so I'm going to be hoping he sticks around and ruins somebody's day. Yours, the Dwarves', whatever.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 02:52
|
|
|
Dallbun posted:Yeah, that's no mystery. Skarsnik's gimmick in this game is that his armies cost peanuts and his spies/assassins are top notch, so absent directed action from the player he definitely tends to stick around and cause trouble.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 02:59
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:I don't know much about the game Age of Sigmar itself. Though I have heard it has improved. But the setting is way less interesting and cool then the old world. THe same reason that the Imperial Guard are officially "Astra Militarum" GW gotta get paid yo. Also I think that they're saying they're effectively stopping future production on TW:W in favor of doing TW:W2
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 03:13
|
|
|
HerraS posted:Thorgrim Grudgebearer Well, he starts on foot. Just not his feet.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 03:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 15:09 |
|
|
Calax posted:Also I think that they're saying they're effectively stopping future production on TW:W in favor of doing TW:W2 WHAT. What about the Skaven? I want my ratmen!
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2017 03:16
|
|